I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Unplayable?
No, {I} don't think so. But obviously your exact results & impressions might vary depending upon what you use/what you face/how you play....
On my end? I had a tough but fairly enjoyable game with my grots vs Deathguard today.
The grots lost the game on VPs - but the forces of Nurgle suffered casualties & (at the cost of another 3 squads of grot tanks) several of my Crusade objectives were achieved.
I don't have the Ork dex, but I hear it isn't in a good place right now.
Any game played against eldar prior to feb 26, 2022 is irrelevant- that's the day they got their new dex, so if you played them before then, you were quite literally playing a different army.
Bar a little too much recent codex power creep, I'm actually finding 9th to be the best edition so far. My only grumble that makes the game a little stale is that all the matched play missions are the same old objective holding ad infinitum. Where are the old kill point and capture table quarter missions? I'm taking to playing the more fun Crusade missions when opponents are cool with it as they are more flavourful.
Yeah, not unplayable, but it's never been easier to get a really crappy match-up.
Unless you're playing the most brand-new codex (which at this point is Tyranids), everything else has do and do not take units. From there, the whole AP vs Armor system is just borked, and so many weapons that are made to kill tanks kill tanks way too well. Even weapons that aren't supposed to kill tanks can still put a lot of damage on tanks.
I'd say to look at the Eldar and Ork codexes, see what it was that caused your side to be so underwhelming and why the Eldar seemed so good, and see if you can find a work-around. Either by shifting up your army strategy and using a different Klan Kulture, or using Stratagems or other things that might give your orks some more punch against Eldar.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
If you thought the game was worse than scattbike era eldar, an era where an Eldar player should have beaten any ork list without losing more than 2-3 models, the problem was probably in the way you guys were playing. Double check your rules.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
If you thought the game was worse than scattbike era eldar, an era where an Eldar player should have beaten any ork list without losing more than 2-3 models, the problem was probably in the way you guys were playing. Double check your rules.
I literally reset my password here just to remind you not *any* eldar list. Not even most of them. Was there, got a gakky tshirt that said "No scatpacks or knights means no wins."
JEREMSTER wrote: It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
Something sounds a little off here - all his stuff hit on a 2+, and all yours only on 6+?
What lists were you two fielding, and how was the board set up?
Just to be clear - I'm not shocked that the game was slanted in the favour of the Eldar, but the above points sound dodgy.
Are orks currently unplayable against top tier armies unless fielding a competitive lists?
Most likely.
Mechanized orks can be very powerful but also extremely weak. I play mostly mechanized orks and among the opponents I also have to face solid crafworlds builds but don't have the idea that the sky is falling, although currently there is a gap between the two armies.
As always, and especially when orks are involved, it's all down to what lists you and your opponenent field other than some experience in mastering the new rules: craftworld are also much easier to play than orks. Giving more attention to objectives and secondaries might be crucial as well.
It's not unplayable. It's not well written or balanced either (but then, 40k never was). The best you can hope for that it's fun, which is subjective.
That said you'll get members trying to tell you that you set up the terrain wrong, or you should discuss your lists beforehand and all other kinds of GW apologetics. The only one that might help is when certain posters suggest playing Crusade, but that again is something that Orks really drew the short straw on so it probably won't help.
OP- Bail out now, before you get into some misguided spiral of sunk costs etc. and look into Grimdark Future or Oldhammer. You'll have to put in some effort for both, but both are far more tolerable than the utter fustercluck 9th is.
drbored wrote: Yeah, not unplayable, but it's never been easier to get a really crappy match-up.
.
This. The trap options, bad builds or building and playing an army the wrong way is very much a problemem. But maybe it is for the better, the whole play what you want was always an illusion, unless someone go really lucky. The way the game is right now, you either follow the meta or you have stop playing a faction or a build, and start playing the game with 4-5 armies with multiple thousands of points owned.
40k is in a great state if you're playing mainly to have fun and aren't overly competitive. I have fun playing my (gakky) IG against my two regular Nid-opponents.
40k is probably horrible if both players are very competitive and one brings a list that's not up to speed against list that is.
The thing is you can do compatative in w40k without trying. One player likes big tyranid monsters, because they like monsters. The other guy likes WWI and XIXth century esthetics. One guy brings 2 of each big nid monster, the other brings waves of IG infantry. First few games will make the IG player not want to play much. Worse the same tyranid player may hate big monsters, want to play swarms of guants , like stormship trooper warrior bugs and they run in to a DA player who likes DW, and suddenly the person with the supposed OP and superior codex is losing a game, after a game.
One thing I'm learning fast (as an Ork player who basically skipped 8th and the start of 9th, then came back to this) is that you need to build your army around the objectives, not killing the enemy.
Focus on:
- taking the objectives
- screening the objectives to keep the enemy away
- survving whilst on the objectives
- getting multiple units into the enemy deployment zone early for linebreaker points
- having units which can perform actions to score more points
- use the objective secured rules to your advantage
For example, I wouldn't be concerned with kiling too many waveserpents (I'd try, but not focus my gameplan on it), and instead focus on getting the most bodies onto objectives. he'll need to get out to contest them, and then he's squishy.
put some big guns on the backfield to sit on objectives, and focus on volume of fire over high damage (damage reduction is becoming the new big thing it seems), so relying on D1 weapons en-masse is less likely to get shut down than relying on D2 weapons which suddenly drop to D1 and therefore suck.
Damage D6 weapons are still ok and the few D3+3 weapons we have are good too, though the wazbomm blastajet has let me down in 3 for 3 games so far.
As older ork players, we need to move our mindset from the old-fashioned "kill them and then take objectives", because that doesn't work any more. You need to use board control and focus on racking up the points, think on the opponents objectives and use them to prioritise your targets (EG if they have linebreaker then you need to prioritise anything which is about to hit your deployment zone. If they have 2 objectives and you have 2 objectives, get them off one so that they don't score as many points in their command phase.
Consider the way scoring in the command phase works. Your opponent sets their army up in their turn, and then hands you control - you determine their points, by what you destroy, swamp, or deny. If they are on 3 objectives, you control their score next turn by how many objectives they are still controlling by the end of your turn.
So, if you have the choice of charging a CC unit, or just standing 1" away and contesting/claiming the objective, go for the objective instead of the charge, so you're there in their command phase. Boom, scores denied.
Meanwhile, you need to be focussing on claiming objectives for your command phase, and giving him enough problems with stuff to clear off his own to worry about, so you can hopefully out-score them on your turn.
No idea for eldar and hitting on 6's, I'm afraid, but good luck!
JEREMSTER wrote: It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
Something sounds a little off here - all his stuff hit on a 2+, and all yours only on 6+?
What lists were you two fielding, and how was the board set up?
Just to be clear - I'm not shocked that the game was slanted in the favour of the Eldar, but the above points sound dodgy.
Hitting on 6's...maybe alaitoc? He's in terrain -1 to hit so 5+ to 6. And one unit out of terrain can get by stratagem.
Well it's not unplayable, but a lot of matches end up being completely one-sided.
Part of the problem lays with the compete mess GW made of 9th edition. There's so many rules that it's hard for ordinary people to keep track of. The mess with strategems, special rules, doctrines, tides and whatnot make for power-combos that are completely unfair and unfun.
The second part of the problem is that (thanks to the internet) these combo's quickly become widely known and therefore 'meta'.
If you've got your backside handed to you a couple of times you automatically adjust to this new meta.
For example, I play an Imperial Guard army. I manage to win regularly, but in order to do so I need to build a list that isn't much fun for my opponents to play against. Basically, lots of re-rolling demolisher shots at max range and a couple of planes.
Last night I took a different list, with a lot of infantry models. Turn one saw my six squads of infantry completely demolished, so I probably won't be using those again any time soon.
One thing that would instantly balance this game is alternating activation. Turn one advantage is waaaay to big in the current game.
I think this edition is pretty bad for returning players, especially for someone who never played 8th. The game is so different than it was during 3rd-7th, and getting used to things like strategems, auras, faction abilities, etc. that buff units up way beyond what their datasheet says is probably the most annoying thing; at least that's how I feel as someone who stopped playing in 6th and came back recently. Also the lethality level in the game is just off the charts; even an 'ard case battlewagon, with T8 16 wounds 3+ armor, will have a hard time surviving a turn of anti-tank fire. Basically anything without an invuln or a way to ignore damage will get killed if you leave out in the open.
The fact that you're playing Orks is also not helping; they're probably the weakest of the 9th ed codexes right now, against eldar which is one of the best.
It still can have bad match-ups, and Orks vs. Eldar are some of the factions at the extreme ends of the bell curve. Most 9th ed codex factions feel pretty close to each other in terms of power. Certainly, there's still a tiered uneven power to the factions. Just most can still beat any other with more optimized list, better play and/or some luck.
Orks, Eldar, Tyranids and possibly Necrons are a couple standard deviations from the middle. With Eldar and Tyranids being on the too good end, and the Orks and Necrons being on the too bad end. In fact, after having a really good look at the Ork 9th ed codex, I'd say it's actually weaker than the 8th CSM codex with all the changes GW has made to CSM in 9th. To be perfectly honest, I don't know what sort of brain-fart GW had when they wrote the Ork codex.
The datasheets are largely middling, with some okay HQ units (which push players to take more detachments). Dakka weapons appear to be a failed idea that is a weak side grade at best. Orks didn't really get a faction wide 'Doctrine' army ability. Ork use in-game stratagems range from mediocre to bad. And that's from a non-Ork player skimming through. The whole thing screams rush job, erring on the side of less power because it was considered less. Honestly, Space Marines aren't the ones that need a new codex. Orks are.
Which is sad because 9th is pretty close to being in a wonderful spot. Eldar and Tyranids could probably toned down with rules tweaks we've already seen done in 9th. Necrons on the other end are the same. But Orks, I think, need a total re-write. It's possible to fix their codex with tweaks, but I don't think those tweaks can fix the fact that Orks don't play very close to how one would think they would. Even in a game sense where a player has to do more than throw everything across the table at their opponent. To me Orks in 9th currently, are like the opposite of Tyranids: pretty much weak at everything and over costed at that.
That said you'll get members trying to tell you that you set up the terrain wrong... and all other kinds of GW apologetics.
It's not GW apologetics to tell people that playing on planet bowling ball will result in unfun games. I will be the first one to bash GW, but personally witnessed a lot of people complaining in 7th about shooting armies while playing with very little terrain and zero terrain that blocked LOS to decent sized models. I played both SW and Eldar competitively at that time. My SW won games and were 1-2 dice rolls from winning some other games against the best TauDar lists because we used terrain layouts from Nova/Adepticon/LVO etc
That said you'll get members trying to tell you that you set up the terrain wrong... and all other kinds of GW apologetics.
It's not GW apologetics to tell people that playing on planet bowling ball will result in unfun games. I will be the first one to bash GW, but personally witnessed a lot of people complaining in 7th about shooting armies while playing with very little terrain and zero terrain that blocked LOS to decent sized models. I played both SW and Eldar competitively at that time. My SW won games and were 1-2 dice rolls from winning some other games against the best TauDar lists because we used terrain layouts from Nova/Adepticon/LVO etc
That's arguable. Not that I want a debate on the subject but if GW designed the game well it SHOULD be playable on Planet Bowling Ball and terrain should be present to offer tactical options and player choices rather than being a necessity to make the game not absolute dogshit.
I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.
The Newman wrote: I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.
I think it depends on your perspective. I agree the scoring system allows technical victories from behind, but I don't think they are narrative victories.
If my army is reduced to 5 troops minis and your army has a tank and two squads left, the fact that I "win" on VPs doesn't mean anything narratively.* In fact, it I feel like it is a BAD thing that I won the game, because now I have to narratively justify how the hell that happened when the troops would have been obliterated 5 seconds later.
*I realize many forced ex post facto justifications can be offered. That isn't the point.
“My plucky battalion held out long enough for the Guard’s main spearhead to ambush the opponent’s reserve forces, destroy them then wipe out the survivors of this battle. It turned the tide in this sector through one heroic company’s sacrifice.”
There. Took me about six heartbeats to think that up. Not hard!
You can also set the stakes up front if you’re so inclined. Doesn’t all have to be post-rationalisation.
I realise this is a level of *gasp* narrative that may shock and appall some of the wannabe tourney folk. Just look away if that’s you.
Last Crusade game I played I won 50-45 while losing every single model I had (I was required to do lot of Actions, thus being somewhat limited in my ability to dish out pain in return). My Death Guard terminator strike force was sending a message to the Tau by setting one of their important towns on fire deep in their own territory.
Despite total losses, the mission had succeeded. Didn't require much narrative gymnastics to make sense of that.
As for the topic itself: 9th is very much a playable, even enjoyable game, if both players are on the same wavelength on how cut-throat or thematic they want the game to be.
JohnnyHell wrote:“My plucky battalion held out long enough for the Guard’s main spearhead to ambush the opponent’s reserve forces, destroy them then wipe out the survivors of this battle. It turned the tide in this sector through one heroic company’s sacrifice.”
There. Took me about six heartbeats to think that up. Not hard!
You can also set the stakes up front if you’re so inclined. Doesn’t all have to be post-rationalisation.
I realise this is a level of *gasp* narrative that may shock and appall some of the wannabe tourney folk. Just look away if that’s you.
Your plucky battalion held out about one minute. Based on the rate of fire of tank cannons (roughly 1 or 2 rounds per turn) the turns are 10-20 seconds long. If we're being generous and saying every turn is 20 seconds of combat, your "plucky battalion" held out for about 100 seconds, and for the last ~40-60 seconds probably was at 30% strength or lower (the point at which most ground units are incapable of resistance in most military documentation).
The number of times in which <100 seconds of combat is the difference between success or failure in an overall sector is minimal, and so if this happens EVERY TIME then I'd argue it's a tortured rationalization.
Sherrypie wrote:Last Crusade game I played I won 50-45 while losing every single model I had (I was required to do lot of Actions, thus being somewhat limited in my ability to dish out pain in return). My Death Guard terminator strike force was sending a message to the Tau by setting one of their important towns on fire deep in their own territory.
Despite total losses, the mission had succeeded. Didn't require much narrative gymnastics to make sense of that.
As for the topic itself: 9th is very much a playable, even enjoyable game, if both players are on the same wavelength on how cut-throat or thematic they want the game to be.
So you lost every single model of Deathguard Terminators and yet you won the battle?
That's exactly what I am talking about. That doesn't make any sense. Terminators are rare and powerful relic suits from an ancient, forgotten age. Losing every single one is a travesty that would likely cripple a warband forever.
Also, I bet your models got experience and "survived" that battle, huh. Wow, so narrative. I guess soldiers in 40k don't even die, especially in suicide missions. Narrative!
You don't have much imagination for someone who needs your games to have a narrative
Or, I choose to actually play a narrative in universe, assuming the rules are intended to function as a replication of what "really would happen" in universe. You know, like rules do
what I don't do is make up rationalizations that literally don't make sense with 2 secs of thought and then say "look how narrative hurr durr". Any old fool can make gak up, but I'd argue it isn't narratively genuine if it makes no effort to actually make sense in-universe.
but if GW designed the game well it SHOULD be playable on Planet Bowling Ball
Serious question: Really?
As I've mentioned before, I don't actually consider myself to be a "Wargamer" - I've played a dozen or so wargames a handful of times, but 40k was the only one that really grabbed me. Having less knowledge of wargames than most dakkanaughts, it's genuine curiosity. I always thought that terrain was always a HUGE part of wargames, and that this was by player choice. I've never known people who either expected or wanted to play on sparse tables.
The Newman wrote: I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.
I think it depends on your perspective. I agree the scoring system allows technical victories from behind, but I don't think they are narrative victories.
If my army is reduced to 5 troops minis and your army has a tank and two squads left, the fact that I "win" on VPs doesn't mean anything narratively.* In fact, it I feel like it is a BAD thing that I won the game, because now I have to narratively justify how the hell that happened when the troops would have been obliterated 5 seconds later.
*I realize many forced ex post facto justifications can be offered. That isn't the point.
I know I'll get labeled with calls of "Forge the Narrative" here, but figured I'd chime in anyway.
So first things first: If you want a narrative game, there is no such thing as "and objective" - I mean, that's what they are on the mission sheet of course. But when you put them on the table in a narrative game, that changes:
"The book says I need to put objective A here: this third party model is Darian Krane- the only surviving pilot of a group that did a flyover in enemy territory, and as such, he's got intel."
"The book says the second objective goes here: the panel on this piece of terrain is a data terminal that contains aerial images that can be used to infer patrol patterns."
"The book says I need to put an objective here: Remember two games ago when the Imperials captured the idol of Gork? Well, this building is the Research facility where the artifact is being catalogued."
"The objective says I have to kill vehicles: that's because the vehicles that have come for the idol of Gork are members of the Speedwaaagh that killed crippled Chaplain Greggor Vance, who is still in the care of the apothecarium; the marines are eager for vengeance."
That's the part of the story that happens before deployment. The next part is figuring out why each of the units going for the objectives are the one's chosen for their particular duty- Librarian Immershade is familiar with the defensive features and security protocols common to research facilities, so he can tackle the idol; squad Delphi was once shuttled into a theatre of war by the pilot, so they should be able to make a visual ID., etc.
The story that emerges through the battle is about who got (or failed to get) which "objective" and what that means to the continuing saga of the campaign.
You and I have talked before about how the Crusade system isn't lethal enough- no one actually dies, they all just become incapacitated during battle and then heal up with scars afterwards. I get how that piece may not be ideal for your campaign depending on what you want: I find the high lethality method is good for attrition campaigns where you start with a huge roster which gets whittled down via casualties. For escalation style campaigns like Crusade though, that's a hard system to use. The injury system, while less than perfect, does make the escalation system work.
but if GW designed the game well it SHOULD be playable on Planet Bowling Ball
Serious question: Really?
As I've mentioned before, I don't actually consider myself to be a "Wargamer" - I've played a dozen or so wargames a handful of times, but 40k was the only one that really grabbed me. Having less knowledge of wargames than most dakkanaughts, it's genuine curiosity. I always thought that terrain was always a HUGE part of wargames, and that this was by player choice. I've never known people who either expected or wanted to play on sparse tables.
It depends on the game and the setting, of course.
A lot of 19th century wargames are open field battles because that's how those armies functioned and how many of the historic battlefields actually were. You'll get some woods and hills on the edges (for assembling the men), but the main engagement area is literally fields & pastures with some fences, hedges and farmhouses, because that is where those infantry blocks and cannon detachments worked*.
*in the sense of firepower and trying to out-'grit' each other. It was a pretty terrible method of warfare from the point of view of modern tactics and strategy.
WFB was often quite similar to that expectation, the table set up was largely for maneuver room. The 'woods in the middle of the board' was something usually only WE players did, and much later the stupid random effect terrain happened and many people wanted to not deal with _any_ of that.
Even in 40k, early games didn't have quite the same obsession with everyone hunkered down in ruins or hiding behind random skyscrapers that appear from nowhere. The first 40k mission was 'battle at the farm' in the RT rulebook, and it was just that. Marines defending a farmhouse from marauding orks advancing across the open space around it. Most WD battle reports for several editions were (iirc) 7-8 pieces of terrain arranged neatly in table quarters. The classic SW vs Orks battle (2nd edition) with pretty much all the named characters mostly involved fighting around a wrecked predator and a hill, with a few pieces of terrain elsewhere on the board.
Now, planet bowling ball is dull. But planet choked-full-of-ruins* with no room for tanks to move is equally dull.
*as is GW's obsession with (human) ruins as the only terrain in a galaxy full of weird and terrible nonsense.
If you were only ever hitting on 6's and he was only ever hitting on 2's then I'd check both your rules because it sounds like someone was playing something wrong somewhere.
The best piece of advice for playing 40k right now is to actually play with the terrain rules. I know that sounds like a ridiculous statement to make but I'm increasingly finding people with the most egregious issues with the current state of the game are literally playing games with basically 0 useable terrain or are often not even using the terrain rules properly. Even then the strength of the terrain rules and their keywords allows you to be flexible with their application; like giving things the obscuring keyword even if they aren't a 5" high ruin for instance. But hey, if you're not even using the obscuring keyword anywhere then I guess it's basically back to 7-8th where armies really did shoot you off the board by turn 2.
@Unit - so you can’t post-rationalise a battle result, yet CAN spend time applying randomly real-world-esque critique of someone else’s attempt at fluff for a result? That’s… sure, ok. I missed the part where the timespan of a game is measured by holding down the trigger and the game ending when your clip runs out. Apply some imagination, man. You’re actively TRYING to not have fun, it seems!
Plus, to real-word you back (patently absurd though any such conversation is) you seem to think people can run an awful long way in a minute, given 5x turns of movement. A turn is not a fixed timespan in my head. You missed out manouvering, aiming, hiding, daring combat, space magic and all the other cool stuff for the sake of a poor attempt at a rebuttal that ignores most of the game.
@Sim-Life - that’s a nonsense take. GW designed the game to use scenery. Not using it and expecting a good game is a fool’s errand.
Sherrypie wrote:Last Crusade game I played I won 50-45 while losing every single model I had (I was required to do lot of Actions, thus being somewhat limited in my ability to dish out pain in return). My Death Guard terminator strike force was sending a message to the Tau by setting one of their important towns on fire deep in their own territory.
Despite total losses, the mission had succeeded. Didn't require much narrative gymnastics to make sense of that.
As for the topic itself: 9th is very much a playable, even enjoyable game, if both players are on the same wavelength on how cut-throat or thematic they want the game to be.
So you lost every single model of Deathguard Terminators and yet you won the battle?
That's exactly what I am talking about. That doesn't make any sense. Terminators are rare and powerful relic suits from an ancient, forgotten age. Losing every single one is a travesty that would likely cripple a warband forever.
Also, I bet your models got experience and "survived" that battle, huh. Wow, so narrative. I guess soldiers in 40k don't even die, especially in suicide missions. Narrative!
In a deep strike where the objective was property damage instead of taking territory? Said damage was caused and the mission thus accomplished. That is winning, yes. Some victories are costlier than others.
As for the survival part, some handwaving is always required to make any miniature game campaign system work unless one goes for a limited campaign roster that gets attritioned down (for the record, I'd love to play some like that, but it requires a dedicated crew). I don't expect every model that goes down as a casualty to die (especially with marines, that can be both teleported away or extricated with Thunderhawks and comparable shuttle craft when incapacitated by injuries), even less so in a game where affecting enemy units requires taking away models as there are no pinning mechanics or wavering fighting spirit to reduce the units' effectiveness instead. 40k as a game has always produced high casualty rates and larger than life personas: it's fun to play campaigns, less fun to create permanent physical models that you couldn't use later on because they died once in a previous game. 1:1 representation between models and their fates in such mechanical frameworks is not a good idea to get stuck on. Like in my example, maybe I did mechanically lose all of my models and still win the scenario, but because the result was a victory, in diegetic terms that meant my force also managed to extract their wounded and slip off with them in the raging firestorm they had caused before the opponent's reinforcements could go through and finish them off instead. 40k games are localised to small areas and last only a short while, showing a highlight reel of a singular clash instead of the larger picture of the war they happen in.
JohnnyHell wrote: I remember the Space Marine rules (Epic) noted that one turn of Close Combat represented an entire 40K battle!
Yup, an assault (or engagement, depending on the edition) which resolves company level clashes does precisely that. There's firefighting, close quarters combat and escalating support from nearby detachments firing in all in one go, as you'd expect from a regular 40k game. In all of these games, it's also pretty fluid on what timescale they're operating on. Heck, even in 40k you might have a full-fledged sunrise or sunset happening between the rounds
but if GW designed the game well it SHOULD be playable on Planet Bowling Ball
Serious question: Really?
As I've mentioned before, I don't actually consider myself to be a "Wargamer" - I've played a dozen or so wargames a handful of times, but 40k was the only one that really grabbed me. Having less knowledge of wargames than most dakkanaughts, it's genuine curiosity. I always thought that terrain was always a HUGE part of wargames, and that this was by player choice. I've never known people who either expected or wanted to play on sparse tables.
The Newman wrote: I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.
I think it depends on your perspective. I agree the scoring system allows technical victories from behind, but I don't think they are narrative victories.
If my army is reduced to 5 troops minis and your army has a tank and two squads left, the fact that I "win" on VPs doesn't mean anything narratively.* In fact, it I feel like it is a BAD thing that I won the game, because now I have to narratively justify how the hell that happened when the troops would have been obliterated 5 seconds later.
*I realize many forced ex post facto justifications can be offered. That isn't the point.
I know I'll get labeled with calls of "Forge the Narrative" here, but figured I'd chime in anyway.
So first things first: If you want a narrative game, there is no such thing as "and objective" - I mean, that's what they are on the mission sheet of course. But when you put them on the table in a narrative game, that changes:
"The book says I need to put objective A here: this third party model is Darian Krane- the only surviving pilot of a group that did a flyover in enemy territory, and as such, he's got intel."
"The book says the second objective goes here: the panel on this piece of terrain is a data terminal that contains aerial images that can be used to infer patrol patterns."
"The book says I need to put an objective here: Remember two games ago when the Imperials captured the idol of Gork? Well, this building is the Research facility where the artifact is being catalogued."
"The objective says I have to kill vehicles: that's because the vehicles that have come for the idol of Gork are members of the Speedwaaagh that killed crippled Chaplain Greggor Vance, who is still in the care of the apothecarium; the marines are eager for vengeance."
That's the part of the story that happens before deployment. The next part is figuring out why each of the units going for the objectives are the one's chosen for their particular duty- Librarian Immershade is familiar with the defensive features and security protocols common to research facilities, so he can tackle the idol; squad Delphi was once shuttled into a theatre of war by the pilot, so they should be able to make a visual ID., etc.
The story that emerges through the battle is about who got (or failed to get) which "objective" and what that means to the continuing saga of the campaign.
You and I have talked before about how the Crusade system isn't lethal enough- no one actually dies, they all just become incapacitated during battle and then heal up with scars afterwards. I get how that piece may not be ideal for your campaign depending on what you want: I find the high lethality method is good for attrition campaigns where you start with a huge roster which gets whittled down via casualties. For escalation style campaigns like Crusade though, that's a hard system to use. The injury system, while less than perfect, does make the escalation system work.
The problem for me is those don't actually make much sense. I mean, that's not generous: some do. But like:
1) Why are you saving a pilot? Why doesn't my army just blat him in the face with a shuriken cannon if he has vital intel? Do we need the intel? If so, can I use psychic interrogation on him? Wait no, immersion broken, he's just a arbitrary space on the table.
2) That one makes sense-ish, but like, why? Wouldn't a more fun mission be playing the reconnaissance troop that gets to create those images in the first place, rather than the guy who goes to download them from... some random spot that happens to be exactly between to fully mustered battalions? Are both armies sent there to retrieve the data? Why would the eldar need to know their own patrol routes?
3) Can I destroy the idol to prevent it from falling into enemy hands? Or perhaps transport it to... idk, orbit? Why am I doing research on the battlefield? If the Ork army has infiltrated the enemy lines - a) how and b) wouldn't that be a more fun mission to play first? And how did a research facility survive anyways?
4) This one makes sense I guess, though it's a bit silly in that trading a company of marines for some Ork buggies destroyed may be "Vengeance" but it's hilariously one-sided in the long run. If the Imperium kept up that rate of trade, well...
Obviously disagreements exist - but I think its great that the mission is something different than "who has the most left at the end of the game". Because such just pushes you going into full lethal with no care for anything else.
Now I do think 40k 9th edition is too lethal. Because GW have skewed the stats.
We are in a world where if both parties lined up 12" from each other with no terrain you'd expect to table the opponent (or get very close). I'm not... totally sure that was the case in past editions (although ymmv). 9th is obviously more lethal than 8th - because they've tuned the damage output up. They didn't have to do that.
JohnnyHell wrote:@Unit - so you can’t post-rationalise a battle result, yet CAN spend time applying randomly real-world-esque critique of someone else’s attempt at fluff for a result? That’s… sure, ok. I missed the part where the timespan of a game is measured by holding down the trigger and the game ending when your clip runs out. Apply some imagination, man. You’re actively TRYING to not have fun, it seems!
Plus, to real-word you back (patently absurd though any such conversation is) you seem to think people can run an awful long way in a minute, given 5x turns of movement. A turn is not a fixed timespan in my head. You missed out manouvering, aiming, hiding, daring combat, space magic and all the other cool stuff for the sake of a poor attempt at a rebuttal that ignores most of the game.
@Sim-Life - that’s a nonsense take. GW designed the game to use scenery. Not using it and expecting a good game is a fool’s errand.
The fact that GW's rules are so shoddily abstracted that time has no meaning is a bad thing, not a good thing. People CAN move extra far, and that's a bad, bad thing. Comparing the rate of fire of, say, a Castigator to the rate of movement of an Imperial Guard squad under Move Move Move indicates that humans are either superhumanly fast, or the Castigator has the worst reload mechanism of the game. And nothing I said has anything to do with holding down the trigger and everything to do with the rate of fire of tanks, which historically (barring some outliers) usually is between 6 and 20 seconds. That neatly lines up with many games that do actually care about how well they're abstracting reality. Most good games go for a rough timespan they're trying to replicate - many miniatures games it's a few (usually 6-20) seconds of combat. The fact that 40k doesn't do this - or rather does it so badly you can't find the time scale - is a horrible problem.
And yet nothing you've said rebuts the point that the battalion held out for literally less than 5 minutes, tops. That's not a meaningful engagement to the sector, that's just folding on contact with the enemy.
Sherrypie wrote:Last Crusade game I played I won 50-45 while losing every single model I had (I was required to do lot of Actions, thus being somewhat limited in my ability to dish out pain in return). My Death Guard terminator strike force was sending a message to the Tau by setting one of their important towns on fire deep in their own territory.
Despite total losses, the mission had succeeded. Didn't require much narrative gymnastics to make sense of that.
As for the topic itself: 9th is very much a playable, even enjoyable game, if both players are on the same wavelength on how cut-throat or thematic they want the game to be.
So you lost every single model of Deathguard Terminators and yet you won the battle?
That's exactly what I am talking about. That doesn't make any sense. Terminators are rare and powerful relic suits from an ancient, forgotten age. Losing every single one is a travesty that would likely cripple a warband forever.
Also, I bet your models got experience and "survived" that battle, huh. Wow, so narrative. I guess soldiers in 40k don't even die, especially in suicide missions. Narrative!
In a deep strike where the objective was property damage instead of taking territory? Said damage was caused and the mission thus accomplished. That is winning, yes. Some victories are costlier than others.
As for the survival part, some handwaving is always required to make any miniature game campaign system work unless one goes for a limited campaign roster that gets attritioned down (for the record, I'd love to play some like that, but it requires a dedicated crew). I don't expect every model that goes down as a casualty to die (especially with marines, that can be both teleported away or extricated with Thunderhawks and comparable shuttle craft when incapacitated by injuries), even less so in a game where affecting enemy units requires taking away models as there are no pinning mechanics or wavering fighting spirit to reduce the units' effectiveness instead. 40k as a game has always produced high casualty rates and larger than life personas: it's fun to play campaigns, less fun to create permanent physical models that you couldn't use later on because they died once in a previous game. 1:1 representation between models and their fates in such mechanical frameworks is not a good idea to get stuck on. Like in my example, maybe I did mechanically lose all of my models and still win the scenario, but because the result was a victory, in diegetic terms that meant my force also managed to extract their wounded and slip off with them in the raging firestorm they had caused before the opponent's reinforcements could go through and finish them off instead. 40k games are localised to small areas and last only a short while, showing a highlight reel of a singular clash instead of the larger picture of the war they happen in.
But the damage to the Tau empire was what, a tau neighborhood? A tau town? Truely, the shatterers of the Tau Empire, this Warband. I'm sure if Pflugerville, Texas burned down the US would be on its knees in days. The warband will be especially terrifying after losing every single one of their irreplaceable relic suits to set a town on fire.
As for the handwaving of casualties, perhaps my point is that the 40k rules are actually really bad for narrative campaigns, precisely because they don't include mechanics that would actually reduce lethality and compel withdrawals before literally every single man on the battlefield is slain.
In Infinity, I don't have to forge the narrative. ITS missions, meaning missions used in tournaments, are what many people here would consider narrative missions.
There's one where you have to rescue civilians, where killing them loses you points, and you need specialists who can grab them.
There's a mission where frostbyte will kill any troops in the exclusion zones if they aren't Heavy Infantry, in a Mech suit, or are a robot, and you can use hackers to turn off heating devices to kill them.
You can do missions with High Value Targets, who you need to capture and bring into your zone, or rescue from the enemy, all while trying to do your secondaries.
I know these wouldn't work as well in 40k, but this proves that they can do missions where I don't have to forge the narrative. They have amazing models in a universe I love, but they can't provide me a good narrative unless I do it myself?
@Unit
Casualty doesn't mean dead. Technically speaking, if you get a splinter while in combat you can be recorded as a casualty.
Terminator suits can have a failsafe built in that means that any fallen Astartes gets teleported back with any living one. In the case of CSM there could also be a Sorcerer who uses wizard powers to extract forces from the field. So in the instance of Sherrypie's Terminators, if all were casualties and the leader's last act was to activate the failsafe, then the suits would be teleported back to their ship in orbit and very few would be lost as a result. As for the mission itself, there is nothing to suggest that the mission is the only act these Terminators have committed, rather it is just the Fire Caste response to said acts. The DG strike force could have been slaughtering the settlement for hours before help arrived and are in the stages of finishing the job when a reactionary force shows up.
You do understand there is a hell of a lot of stuff in 40k right? There are so many things going on that you can't possibly know every single detail in existence. Take for example your point about fully removed units gaining XP. We've already established that casualties =/= dead so if a unit is fully removed then perhaps some of the unit survived, injured but alive. The remainder of the unit takes whatever experience they gained in the battle and teaches it to replacements. Or if the unit is something like Astartes who can consume cranial matter to gain the memories of the donor, then they could easily see how the donor died and avoid the same mistake in the future. I mean you've got Daemons which are functionally immortal and Tyranids which can recreate the exact same beast a thousand times in a thousand places. You lack imagination.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: In Infinity, I don't have to forge the narrative. ITS missions, meaning missions used in tournaments, are what many people here would consider narrative missions.
There's one where you have to rescue civilians, where killing them loses you points, and you need specialists who can grab them.
There's a mission where frostbyte will kill any troops in the exclusion zones if they aren't Heavy Infantry, in a Mech suit, or are a robot, and you can use hackers to turn off heating devices to kill them.
You can do missions with High Value Targets, who you need to capture and bring into your zone, or rescue from the enemy, all while trying to do your secondaries.
I know these wouldn't work as well in 40k, but this proves that they can do missions where I don't have to forge the narrative. They have amazing models in a universe I love, but they can't provide me a good narrative unless I do it myself?
All of this is true, but one has to consider that Infinity has a much better foundation to achieve this effect than 40k does. Infinity is a lot less abstract in the way your miniatures interact with the board. Infinity is also mostly about single miniatures achieving things at a time, which in turn helps with the whole "action movie" flair. Tarik Mansuri dodging a Missile Launcher ARO, then jumping a gap between two rooftops, taking out an enemy line trooper while doing so, is a lot more granular and involved than "let me roll 52 dice to have this blob of units shoot that blob of units".
The challenge for GW going forward is to construct their game in a way that allows for an organic narrative to develop that doesn't feel trivial within the context of what is actually happening on the board.
Gert wrote: @Unit
Casualty doesn't mean dead. Technically speaking, if you get a splinter while in combat you can be recorded as a casualty.
Terminator suits can have a failsafe built in that means that any fallen Astartes gets teleported back with any living one. In the case of CSM there could also be a Sorcerer who uses wizard powers to extract forces from the field. So in the instance of Sherrypie's Terminators, if all were casualties and the leader's last act was to activate the failsafe, then the suits would be teleported back to their ship in orbit and very few would be lost as a result. As for the mission itself, there is nothing to suggest that the mission is the only act these Terminators have committed, rather it is just the Fire Caste response to said acts. The DG strike force could have been slaughtering the settlement for hours before help arrived and are in the stages of finishing the job when a reactionary force shows up.
You do understand there is a hell of a lot of stuff in 40k right? There are so many things going on that you can't possibly know every single detail in existence. Take for example your point about fully removed units gaining XP. We've already established that casualties =/= dead so if a unit is fully removed then perhaps some of the unit survived, injured but alive. The remainder of the unit takes whatever experience they gained in the battle and teaches it to replacements. Or if the unit is something like Astartes who can consume cranial matter to gain the memories of the donor, then they could easily see how the donor died and avoid the same mistake in the future. I mean you've got Daemons which are functionally immortal and Tyranids which can recreate the exact same beast a thousand times in a thousand places. You lack imagination.
This is exactly what I mean by post-facto justifications. "Oh, they all had teleporters!" Tell that to my Eldar, tabled by Grey Knights. "Well, a wizard did it!" Alright, 10/10 narrative.
The rest is just more of the same. Ex-post-facto rationalizations to make the rules fit the fluff, rather than the rules just being designed to .... well, fit the fluff.
But the damage to the Tau empire was what, a tau neighborhood? A tau town? Truely, the shatterers of the Tau Empire, this Warband. I'm sure if Pflugerville, Texas burned down the US would be on its knees in days. The warband will be especially terrifying after losing every single one of their irreplaceable relic suits to set a town on fire.
As for the handwaving of casualties, perhaps my point is that the 40k rules are actually really bad for narrative campaigns, precisely because they don't include mechanics that would actually reduce lethality and compel withdrawals before literally every single man on the battlefield is slain.
People rarely play with 10 000 models at once, cover a whole planet on one table or otherwise require any such shenanigans to represent an important narrative event with a game that shows a localized highlight of the larger conflict with a platoon level force of models. Like I said, 40k shows the cool pulpy action movie bash where the larger context culminates. My XIV legion didn't only send 20 men to attack a planet, nor was having some of them beaten up a bit a major loss for their armoury (since what happened in that singular spearhead on our table didn't necessarily mean the entire thousands strong force was incapacitated). The destruction the operation caused wasn't limited to the single neighbourhood we had physically on the table either. Who knows how long they'd been there or if they had been telehopping through dozen cities earlier on before the Tau finally managed to bring them to battle? Why does this seem hard for you to accept in the framework of "sure would be fun to play out some cool wargaming scenarios"? Like Gert aptly put it:
Gert wrote:@Unit
Casualty doesn't mean dead. Technically speaking, if you get a splinter while in combat you can be recorded as a casualty.
Terminator suits can have a failsafe built in that means that any fallen Astartes gets teleported back with any living one. In the case of CSM there could also be a Sorcerer who uses wizard powers to extract forces from the field. So in the instance of Sherrypie's Terminators, if all were casualties and the leader's last act was to activate the failsafe, then the suits would be teleported back to their ship in orbit and very few would be lost as a result. As for the mission itself, there is nothing to suggest that the mission is the only act these Terminators have committed, rather it is just the Fire Caste response to said acts. The DG strike force could have been slaughtering the settlement for hours before help arrived and are in the stages of finishing the job when a reactionary force shows up.
You do understand there is a hell of a lot of stuff in 40k right? There are so many things going on that you can't possibly know every single detail in existence. Take for example your point about fully removed units gaining XP. We've already established that casualties =/= dead so if a unit is fully removed then perhaps some of the unit survived, injured but alive. The remainder of the unit takes whatever experience they gained in the battle and teaches it to replacements. Or if the unit is something like Astartes who can consume cranial matter to gain the memories of the donor, then they could easily see how the donor died and avoid the same mistake in the future. I mean you've got Daemons which are functionally immortal and Tyranids which can recreate the exact same beast a thousand times in a thousand places. You lack imagination.
As for casualties, I've got to remark how modern combat veterans tend to shake their heads at soldiers who go into combat without any kind of eye protection. You don't need to die when a puff of dust or a speck of sand (that you might've thrown around yourself) in your face can render you incapable of fighting
Unit1126PLL wrote: This is exactly what I mean by post-facto justifications. "Oh, they all had teleporters!" Tell that to my Eldar, tabled by Grey Knights. "Well, a wizard did it!" Alright, 10/10 narrative.
The rest is just more of the same. Ex-post-facto rationalizations to make the rules fit the fluff, rather than the rules just being designed to .... well, fit the fluff.
If the rules fit the background Space Marines would never lose.
As for your fancy Latin, do you understand the concept of an after-action report or storytelling? You can't tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end before the end. We're only discussing people's past games because (I presume) nobody is currently in the act of playing a game of 40k.
But the damage to the Tau empire was what, a tau neighborhood? A tau town? Truely, the shatterers of the Tau Empire, this Warband. I'm sure if Pflugerville, Texas burned down the US would be on its knees in days. The warband will be especially terrifying after losing every single one of their irreplaceable relic suits to set a town on fire.
As for the handwaving of casualties, perhaps my point is that the 40k rules are actually really bad for narrative campaigns, precisely because they don't include mechanics that would actually reduce lethality and compel withdrawals before literally every single man on the battlefield is slain.
People rarely play with 10 000 models at once, cover a whole planet on one table or otherwise require any such shenanigans to represent an important narrative event with a game that shows a localized highlight of the larger conflict with a platoon level force of models. Like I said, 40k shows the cool pulpy action movie bash where the larger context culminates. My XIV legion didn't only send 20 men to attack a planet, nor was having some of them beaten up a bit a major loss for their armoury (since what happened in that singular spearhead on our table didn't necessarily mean the entire thousands strong force was incapacitated). The destruction the operation caused wasn't limited to the single neighbourhood we had physically on the table either. Who knows how long they'd been there or if they had been telehopping through dozen cities earlier on before the Tau finally managed to bring them to battle? Why does this seem hard for you to accept in the framework of "sure would be fun to play out some cool wargaming scenarios"?
There are tons of games out there that do platoon scale combat and manage to have one side withdraw without suffering 100% casualties. That's rather my point - military realities (the rarity of terminator suits for example) will force units to withdraw even when their morale is unbroken. Units taking 60-80% casualties without disintegrating is a huge deal historically and typically sees those units remembered through the ages. The exceptions are very rare and are typically when one side has no choice (e.g. Cannae or Thermopylae where armies became surrounded).
100% casualties isn't "some of them beaten up". Casualty in 40k means the model cannot fght any more. Considering Marines can fight with one arm removed, or half their head gone - and PLAGUE MARINES can endure even more before collapsing, I would say they're a good bit worse than "beaten up". And given the rarity of Terminator suits, the Tau would've had to lose like a major leader or minor planet to make the loss worthwhile. Don't forget, the death-guard literally cannot replace their terminator suits. Once one's done, it's done. And since they were all incapable of fighting, barring "a wizard did it" as a narrative tool, the Tau probably finished most them off and captured most of the suits to boot.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: In Infinity, I don't have to forge the narrative. ITS missions, meaning missions used in tournaments, are what many people here would consider narrative missions.
There's one where you have to rescue civilians, where killing them loses you points, and you need specialists who can grab them.
There's a mission where frostbyte will kill any troops in the exclusion zones if they aren't Heavy Infantry, in a Mech suit, or are a robot, and you can use hackers to turn off heating devices to kill them.
You can do missions with High Value Targets, who you need to capture and bring into your zone, or rescue from the enemy, all while trying to do your secondaries.
I know these wouldn't work as well in 40k, but this proves that they can do missions where I don't have to forge the narrative. They have amazing models in a universe I love, but they can't provide me a good narrative unless I do it myself?
All of this is true, but one has to consider that Infinity has a much better foundation to achieve this effect than 40k does. Infinity is a lot less abstract in the way your miniatures interact with the board. Infinity is also mostly about single miniatures achieving things at a time, which in turn helps with the whole "action movie" flair. Tarik Mansuri dodging a Missile Launcher ARO, then jumping a gap between two rooftops, taking out an enemy line trooper while doing so, is a lot more granular and involved than "let me roll 52 dice to have this blob of units shoot that blob of units".
The challenge for GW going forward is to construct their game in a way that allows for an organic narrative to develop that doesn't feel trivial within the context of what is actually happening on the board.
I agree completely. If GW makes it so I can experience a narrative on the board, I'll gladly play, even if there's terrible balance. Infinity is enough for me until then, even if I vastly prefer 40k's universe and models. Though, i feel that large scale missions can still do the civilian mission I mentioned, and it would work like 10 marines or 20 guardsmen moving forward to grab the citizen, then keeping them in the middle of their group, maintaining a close formation, or using look out sir rules to protect the inquisitor.
@Sim-Life - that’s a nonsense take. GW designed the game to use scenery. Not using it and expecting a good game is a fool’s errand.
If the second sentence was true then we wouldn't have had two editions in a row with bad terrain rules. As to the third, Voss addressed it better than I could.
The Newman wrote: I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.
I think it depends on your perspective. I agree the scoring system allows technical victories from behind, but I don't think they are narrative victories.
If my army is reduced to 5 troops minis and your army has a tank and two squads left, the fact that I "win" on VPs doesn't mean anything narratively.* In fact, it I feel like it is a BAD thing that I won the game, because now I have to narratively justify how the hell that happened when the troops would have been obliterated 5 seconds later.
*I realize many forced ex post facto justifications can be offered. That isn't the point.
I didn't even mean that kind of a scenario, I meant I've had games where I had a bad couple of turns, hadn't killed my priority targets, and was behind on points, and still managed to swing the game back because I'd traded early board position for mid-game material advantage.
I think the last page of back-and-forth does highlight why I'm having a good time with 40k and a lot of people aren't though, and it comes down to what I want out of a game. I don't care much about the narrative, I'm looking for a contest of strategic and tactical acumen. Preferably with the emphasis on the second one. 40k still feels like it's decided in the list-building phase a lot of the time, but it feels like the issue is point balance rather than some fundamental flaw in the game design.
But the damage to the Tau empire was what, a tau neighborhood? A tau town? Truely, the shatterers of the Tau Empire, this Warband. I'm sure if Pflugerville, Texas burned down the US would be on its knees in days. The warband will be especially terrifying after losing every single one of their irreplaceable relic suits to set a town on fire.
I don't think you thought through this example. Because there are multiple times where the destruction of a single village or even the death of a single person impacted the US as a hole to a huge degree. If the "neighbourhood" held the families of the heads of a cast for example, or a "school" for young eterals you could have a devastating effect on the tau population. What if a entire sectors of the tau empire would be hard pressed on eternals in a generation, because an entire batch of them got slaughtered? There would be disstress, casts could worry about some place becoming Farsight Enclave 2.0. etc
There are tons of games out there that do platoon scale combat and manage to have one side withdraw without suffering 100% casualties. That's rather my point - military realities (the rarity of terminator suits for example) will force units to withdraw even when their morale is unbroken. Units taking 60-80% casualties without disintegrating is a huge deal historically and typically sees those units remembered through the ages. The exceptions are very rare and are typically when one side has no choice (e.g. Cannae or Thermopylae where armies became surrounded).
There are. 40k is not one of them, nor is it trying to, being an over the top heavy metal album cover in a tabletop game form. That point is not important here, when we're discussing the times when such exceptions happen and how many 40k scenarios in particular revel in setting them up. So instead of saying "such Pyrrhic victories make no sense" (to you), the question being asked is "how does it still make sense even if the victor lost most or everything" and exploring that option. Thermopylae is a great example of the larger context mattering outside what we see on the table, which you've thus far been somewhat obstinate about: even if all the Spartans died and the Persians overtook the pass itself, the Greek side still mechanically won on the objectives by stalling long enough for the larger war to turn bad for the opposition.
100% casualties isn't "some of them beaten up". Casualty in 40k means the model cannot fght any more. Considering Marines can fight with one arm removed, or half their head gone - and PLAGUE MARINES can endure even more before collapsing, I would say they're a good bit worse than "beaten up". And given the rarity of Terminator suits, the Tau would've had to lose like a major leader or minor planet to make the loss worthwhile. Don't forget, the death-guard literally cannot replace their terminator suits. Once one's done, it's done. And since they were all incapable of fighting, barring "a wizard did it" as a narrative tool, the Tau probably finished most them off and captured most of the suits to boot.
That's one way to think about it, not an objectively correct one. All that removal means is that said model stops fighting effectively for the duration of the game. Just by taking your previous read on the duration of the game (which is, again, your subjective take on it), the game is so short that a casualty could just as well represent a soldier being temporarily knocked out by banging their head against a wall after being thrown by an explosion. Becoming unconscious, stunned or dazed is a very normal thing on the battlefield. Or being buried under rubble for a moment before digging themselves out after the firing ceases, powered armour is very handy in that regard. Again, the point is to make narrative sense of the abstracted game results as they happen, which isn't hard unless you're taking a very strictly literal read on the game moves.
As for the rest, you only need a "wizard did it" if you can't look at the game as a snapshot of the larger fight. Can't force you on that point, but that really hasn't been a problem in my circles for decades.
I will slightly disagree with your Thermopylae metaphor. In 40K the 2 sides are equal whereas in the context of Persians and Greeks that small unit of Spartans delayed almost the entire Persian army. This enabled the Greeks to gather their manpower and organize against the Persian invasion. In 40K there isn't really that scale of conflict being reflected. Both sides are of equal stature and therefore each side is equally expendable. If you're going to claim that the defender was a delaying force then it couldn't have been defending much since the attacker isn't using overwhelming force to capture/overrun the objective/defenders to get to their goal. If you're going to play a Thermopylae type scenerio then the defender should have maybe 500 points to the attackers 2000. Both sides should start with CPs equal to what their starting points are (3 and 12 respectively). Then you declare that the defender has to keep the attacker from exiting some limited area of the map. Should the attacker not get X amount of points off the map before the end of Turn 5 the defender wins. Anything else the defender loses. That's a Thermopylae scenerio.
40k currently functions when played by people with large collections and a high degree of system mastery who readily communicate what they're expecting from the game and know how to set up games where neither player has lost before deployment. It breaks down very quickly if one player gets attached to using specific models or a specific army, or if the players have a slight mismatch about what kind of game they're expecting, or if neither player has the system mastery to determine that they accidentally set up a match in which one of them lost the game when deciding which models to buy years earlier. It isn't a straightforward pick-up-and-play experience, no matter how much it pretends to be.
AnomanderRake wrote: 40k currently functions when played by people with large collections and a high degree of system mastery who readily communicate what they're expecting from the game and know how to set up games where neither player has lost before deployment. It breaks down very quickly if one player gets attached to using specific models or a specific army, or if the players have a slight mismatch about what kind of game they're expecting, or if neither player has the system mastery to determine that they accidentally set up a match in which one of them lost the game when deciding which models to buy years earlier. It isn't a straightforward pick-up-and-play experience, no matter how much it pretends to be.
What rubbish. The only thing you've gotten right in there is players needing to communicate. But that's been true since before 40k existed....
You do not need large collections & high degrees of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k.
Likewise you can generally* get by the same models/army for many years.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: There's one where you have to rescue civilians, where killing them loses you points, and you need specialists who can grab them.
That's not how Rescue has worked for some time. Any trooper can synch civilians, but specialists can synch two of them. And you can't kill them.
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ccs wrote: What rubbish. The only thing you've gotten right in there is players needing to communicate. But that's been true since before 40k existed....
You do not need large collections & high degrees of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k.
Likewise you can generally* get by the same models/army for many years.
Bruh if I bought clowns and my opponent bought Orks or Guard, no amount of communicating is gonna make games fun.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: There's one where you have to rescue civilians, where killing them loses you points, and you need specialists who can grab them.
That's not how Rescue has worked for some time. Any trooper can synch civilians, but specialists can synch two of them. And you can't kill them.
Thanks for the correction, I was gonna play that mission soon.
There are. 40k is not one of them, nor is it trying to, being an over the top heavy metal album cover in a tabletop game form. That point is not important here, when we're discussing the times when such exceptions happen and how many 40k scenarios in particular revel in setting them up. So instead of saying "such Pyrrhic victories make no sense" (to you), the question being asked is "how does it still make sense even if the victor lost most or everything" and exploring that option.
This is literally "consider how to fit the narrative to the rules". I also can make random gak up - but it isn't any more narrative than "all my soldiers had their lunchboxes and got better after eating, because of my chapter's super secret Matter Recombination Gland - a mutation in their geneseed. And it fixes their armor too."
100% casualties isn't "some of them beaten up". Casualty in 40k means the model cannot fght any more. Considering Marines can fight with one arm removed, or half their head gone - and PLAGUE MARINES can endure even more before collapsing, I would say they're a good bit worse than "beaten up". And given the rarity of Terminator suits, the Tau would've had to lose like a major leader or minor planet to make the loss worthwhile. Don't forget, the death-guard literally cannot replace their terminator suits. Once one's done, it's done. And since they were all incapable of fighting, barring "a wizard did it" as a narrative tool, the Tau probably finished most them off and captured most of the suits to boot.
That's one way to think about it, not an objectively correct one. All that removal means is that said model stops fighting effectively for the duration of the game. Just by taking your previous read on the duration of the game (which is, again, your subjective take on it), the game is so short that a casualty could just as well represent a soldier being temporarily knocked out by banging their head against a wall after being thrown by an explosion. Becoming unconscious, stunned or dazed is a very normal thing on the battlefield. Or being buried under rubble for a moment before digging themselves out after the firing ceases, powered armour is very handy in that regard. Again, the point is to make narrative sense of the abstracted game results as they happen, which isn't hard unless you're taking a very strictly literal read on the game moves.
As for the rest, you only need a "wizard did it" if you can't look at the game as a snapshot of the larger fight. Can't force you on that point, but that really hasn't been a problem in my circles for decades.
Instead of torturing the narrative until it complies with the rules...
...how about make the rules actually represent the universe they are ostensibly set in?
ccs wrote: The only thing you've gotten right in there is players needing to communicate. But that's been true since before 40k existed....
You do not need large collections & high degrees of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k.
Likewise you can generally* get by the same models/army for many years.
If 40k required a high degree of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k, I'd never enjoy a game of 40k.
My last 3 games of 40k have been quite enjoyable as well as insanely close. I am finding that I enjoy Open War games where 3 cards are drawn per category and each player get to veto one card from each category. So far, every game I have played that way has come down to the wire.
As for narrative, I always include it in my games as I came from TTRPGs are realistically got into miniatures war gaming to get much of the RPG experience without needing more than a single person. Which is much easier to coordinate than a group of people. Examples of mission narratives have been:
3 dead Skitarii scouts recorded the strength, positions and plans of a Black Legion Black Crusade (Abaddon's 13 Black Cursades aren't the only ones) but were unable to upload the information to the Noosphere before being terminated. Without this information, AdMech forces will lack vital information on the Chaos Space Marines to mount a proper defense. Conversely, the Black Legion forces want to determine what information these Skitarii scouts had to make future adjustments to their crusade, and if possible, download scrap code viruses to further disrupt the defense should CSM be unable to take control of the ground.
Black Legion forces are performing a material raid of Imperial armory sites to sustain momentum in an ongoing Black Crusade. However, a Daemon Prince has learned that Custodes have been alerted to the sector and wishes a re-match ever since the closing days of the Horus Revolution. Doubly so since then, they have ascended to become a Daemon Prince. For daemon and daemonkin forces, casualties aren't an issue, provided they are able to gloat and defeat at least a few Custodes. The remaining CSM aren't about to take much risk, leaving with as much loot as they can before the Talons of the Emperor can secure the planet.
Genestealer Cult promethium refinery workers have noted strange flora in an area of high radiation. Upon investigation, the Cult learned that Nurgle's bloom has infected the refinery and at minimum threatens to expose the cult should quotas not be met, and worst case scenario this could be the beginning of a full scale Chaos invasion. In the interim, promethium must be secured to meet Imperium quotas. After which, the Death Guard threat can be further explored to determine if it is worth fighting, or if contacting the planetary governor to get outside aid should be brought in (such as space marines) where the cult simply can go underground until the Nurgle threat is dealt with and Imperial expeditionary forces leave. The promethium must flow regardless.
All 3 of these scenarios absolutely don't matter if a side is tabled, since total destruction of forces won't stop what the battle already set in motion. The information, material or other is far more important than the warriors and equipment used to obtain them.
In a system where narrative is included in missions, this can still happen. In fact, if the narrative was included in missions, we wouldn't have to make up why we won outside of a gamey stand in circle mission. We could have it so you needed people with particular skills to go forward and sever datalinks with electromagnetic weapons so their information can't reach their superior, or to collect weapons to resupply their troops.
The issue isn't that narrative can't possibly exist. I can pretend my Necrons stopped taking their Flintstones vitamins, and that's why they are weaker than Space Marines, and the one Marine unit that stole them get Transhuman physiology for a turn. But I don't have to if there's a narrative in the mission already there. It's not a lack of creativity on our part, it's a lack of creativity and an over reliance on the players not caring on Games Workshop's part.
ccs wrote: What rubbish. The only thing you've gotten right in there is players needing to communicate. But that's been true since before 40k existed....
You do not need large collections & high degrees of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k.
Likewise you can generally* get by the same models/army for many years.
Bruh if I bought clowns and my opponent bought Orks or Guard, no amount of communicating is gonna make games fun.
Then don't be TFG & bring clowns.
But seriously? Yes, there is some amount of communication that'll result in a fun game with those forces. And if you insist upon playing such a match-up outside a tourney then it's on you & your opponent to find out what that is.
ccs wrote: What rubbish. The only thing you've gotten right in there is players needing to communicate. But that's been true since before 40k existed....
You do not need large collections & high degrees of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k.
Likewise you can generally* get by the same models/army for many years.
Bruh if I bought clowns and my opponent bought Orks or Guard, no amount of communicating is gonna make games fun.
Then don't be TFG & bring clowns.
So you're saying if someone is attached to a unit or an army then 40k breaks down, you know- just like AnomaderRake said and you called "rubbish". Pick a lane mate.
I play orks vs harlequins pretty often and never had problems even before the points changes. In real life no one spammed voidweavers (in fact many players didn't even have a single one of those) and an ork player with a large collection can definitely play strong lists in any casual to semi competitive meta. We're still talking about two average gamers who want to play with each other, not random ork player who wants to win a major event.
At the moment it's actually me, ork player who can field any lists archetype barring the kill rigs, that have to tone down against the harlequin dudes.
Of course if two players only have 2000 points each of miniatures and one brings orks while the other one brings harlequins chances to have a good time are pretty low.
Why does choosing to play any army instantly make someone a TFG?
What if someone likes Harlequins, or has been playing them since they first got an article in Citadel Journal? Now suddenly they're the donkey-cave for simply using them?
Regardign the phrase "if they made 40k properly it could be played on planet bowling ball", this is a nonsensical standpoint. It's along the same lines as "If the computer security was designed properly then it wouldn't matter if my password is "password"".
Cover and line of sight blocking is a needed part of the game to reduce lethality, deny targets, and so on. It's part of the game, as much as charging into close combat is. planet bowling ball will always favour the long ranged guns, because if it didn't, then cover would make them overpriced.
And that's why points aren't really for balance. Just to facilite quick game with some semblance of idea that you might be at least SOMEWHERE in the same galaxy for balanced game.
In a system where narrative is included in missions, this can still happen. In fact, if the narrative was included in missions, we wouldn't have to make up why we won outside of a gamey stand in circle mission. We could have it so you needed people with particular skills to go forward and sever datalinks with electromagnetic weapons so their information can't reach their superior, or to collect weapons to resupply their troops.
The issue isn't that narrative can't possibly exist. I can pretend my Necrons stopped taking their Flintstones vitamins, and that's why they are weaker than Space Marines, and the one Marine unit that stole them get Transhuman physiology for a turn. But I don't have to if there's a narrative in the mission already there. It's not a lack of creativity on our part, it's a lack of creativity and an over reliance on the players not caring on Games Workshop's part.
Or have you considered that leaving the players to make their own narrative is the point?
There are currently 19 armies in 40k (condensing all the Imperial Marines barring Grey Knights and discounting Inquisition and Assassins as they aren't proper armies). On top of those 19, there are about 7 subfactions per army (Space Marines, of course, have more) and there are rules to create custom subfactions. Each subfaction will have it's own goals, intentions, tactics and secrets plus whatever the individual army leader wants and the player's own narrative choices.
Do you think it would be easier to design missions that are generic and can be crafted to suit every single army in the game or to make missions that fit one very specific narrative for each mission? Even the missions in campaign supplements are designed so that any army can play any scenario despite them being tied to events within the books.
I agree with unit, they could do a hell of a lot more when it comes to narrative scenarios but in order to do so the first thing they need to do is reduce lethality. The odd phyrric victory is perfectly fluffy, constant phyrric victories may be fluffy if you reallllly stretch it but it sure is boring for a game mode that is meant to encourage story telling.
In a system where narrative is included in missions, this can still happen. In fact, if the narrative was included in missions, we wouldn't have to make up why we won outside of a gamey stand in circle mission. We could have it so you needed people with particular skills to go forward and sever datalinks with electromagnetic weapons so their information can't reach their superior, or to collect weapons to resupply their troops.
The issue isn't that narrative can't possibly exist. I can pretend my Necrons stopped taking their Flintstones vitamins, and that's why they are weaker than Space Marines, and the one Marine unit that stole them get Transhuman physiology for a turn. But I don't have to if there's a narrative in the mission already there. It's not a lack of creativity on our part, it's a lack of creativity and an over reliance on the players not caring on Games Workshop's part.
Or have you considered that leaving the players to make their own narrative is the point?
There are currently 19 armies in 40k (condensing all the Imperial Marines barring Grey Knights and discounting Inquisition and Assassins as they aren't proper armies). On top of those 19, there are about 7 subfactions per army (Space Marines, of course, have more) and there are rules to create custom subfactions. Each subfaction will have it's own goals, intentions, tactics and secrets plus whatever the individual army leader wants and the player's own narrative choices.
Do you think it would be easier to design missions that are generic and can be crafted to suit every single army in the game or to make missions that fit one very specific narrative for each mission? Even the missions in campaign supplements are designed so that any army can play any scenario despite them being tied to events within the books.
The missions are a symptom of badly written core rules, basically from the ground up.
There is a balance between player narrative and overall narrative. Player narrative should weave into the overall narrative, not just be whatever. I can write 'whatever' narrative on the back of a napkin and even whip up some rules to play it.
But GW says: "THERE ARE NO RULES! THE SETTING IS MORE LIKE GUIDELINES!" and then says "boy look how much we are supporting narrative play compared to the past, amirite?"
How much do you want to bet the Chaos corruption mechanics that are coming for Crusade don't exclude Grey Knights? Or Tyranids?
Unit1126PLL wrote: The missions are a symptom of badly written core rules, basically from the ground up.
There is a balance between player narrative and overall narrative. Player narrative should weave into the overall narrative, not just be whatever. I can write 'whatever' narrative on the back of a napkin and even whip up some rules to play it.
How does player narrative not tie into the wider 40k story of "There is only war"? Unless you aren't actually hurting your enemies in the games you play and don't take any damage in return, I'd say you're playing into the overall narrative pretty well. We're talking about a setting the size of a galaxy where wars are won and lost by millions if not billions of lives. The rules of war don't exist and modern wars or even historic conflicts don't hold a torch to what 40k is. There are demi-gods and daemons walking around alongside Private Kevin and his laser gun. If you want GW to provide you with reasoning for every single possible narrative then you are nuts.
But GW says: "THERE ARE NO RULES! THE SETTING IS MORE LIKE GUIDELINES!" and then says "boy look how much we are supporting narrative play compared to the past, amirite?"
Where does GW say that? Like I'm genuinely curious where that is written. I also want to know what your guidelines are to make the game narrative. There is Crusade for making your own narrative with tools provided both in Codexes and campaign books, there are a lot of different campaign books with lots of different missions, game rules, and add-ons like Warzones so that you can make the game more narrative. The only way GW could do better would be to make every single rulebook and campaign supplement free.
And as a side note, haven't people been complaining for years because, in their opinion, GW was making 40k too set in stone? Now you're complaining the sandbox setting is too sandboxy. I just can't understand what it is you're complaining about.
How much do you want to bet the Chaos corruption mechanics that are coming for Crusade don't exclude Grey Knights? Or Tyranids?
I have no idea if it will or not because funnily enough, I haven't got the rules. I will say that the Torchbearer Fleet rules from WD were very specific with what you could and could not do with regards to army building and honestly, I think you're making up excuses to be angry with this point.
Of course if two players only have 2000 points each of miniatures and one brings orks while the other one brings harlequins chances to have a good time are pretty low.
how many teens do you think start the game by buying 6000pts of any army, or multiple armies at 2000pts? This is some avarge player is a 30+ year old returning to the game after X years, while having a few armies stashed already and another few bought or ordered from ebay.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The missions are a symptom of badly written core rules, basically from the ground up.
There is a balance between player narrative and overall narrative. Player narrative should weave into the overall narrative, not just be whatever. I can write 'whatever' narrative on the back of a napkin and even whip up some rules to play it.
How does player narrative not tie into the wider 40k story of "There is only war"? Unless you aren't actually hurting your enemies in the games you play and don't take any damage in return, I'd say you're playing into the overall narrative pretty well. We're talking about a setting the size of a galaxy where wars are won and lost by millions if not billions of lives. The rules of war don't exist and modern wars or even historic conflicts don't hold a torch to what 40k is. There are demi-gods and daemons walking around alongside Private Kevin and his laser gun. If you want GW to provide you with reasoning for every single possible narrative then you are nuts.
The fact that you don't apply your own logic to the rules is hilarious.
No, I am not actually hurting my enemies in return, nor am I being hurt.
I've had IG companies wiped out to a man - but no, they're back next week for more! Precious and irreplaceable artefacts, lost to the foe on the battlefield? No, we recovered the Blade of Conquest, silly.
It's Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain level stuff. "I'll get you next week, Enemy Army!!! And maybe that time I will WIN the rolloff to go first! Mwahahahahaahah!" Says the defeated villain whose stuff is all fine and so is his opponent's.
"Finally, the ancient and venerable Baneblade, Mars Triumphant, is destroyed, and the Chaos armies celebrate by destroying it again next week, and the week after that..."
It's Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain level stuff. "I'll get you next week, Enemy Army!!! And maybe that time I will WIN the rolloff to go first! Mwahahahahaahah!" Says the defeated villain whose stuff is all fine and so is his opponent's.
"Finally, the ancient and venerable Baneblade, Mars Triumphant, is destroyed, and the Chaos armies celebrate by destroying it again next week, and the week after that..."
So what would need to be changed in order to solve this? Considering that most people have a fixed set of units available, this recurring army phenomenon is pretty much a given. The only way around it would be to reduce lethality to the point where casualties are greatly reduced across the board and armies can logically persist across multiple games or campaigns.
It's Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain level stuff. "I'll get you next week, Enemy Army!!! And maybe that time I will WIN the rolloff to go first! Mwahahahahaahah!" Says the defeated villain whose stuff is all fine and so is his opponent's.
"Finally, the ancient and venerable Baneblade, Mars Triumphant, is destroyed, and the Chaos armies celebrate by destroying it again next week, and the week after that..."
So what would need to be changed in order to solve this? Considering that most people have a fixed set of units available, this recurring army phenomenon is pretty much a given. The only way around it would be to reduce lethality to the point where casualties are greatly reduced across the board and armies can logically persist across multiple games or campaigns.
You hit it right on the nose - actually make 40k a wargame. Rebuild it from the ground up to support verisimilitude.
The campaign system "At The Sharp End" for Chain of Command is an example of such a system for a platoon to company scale (i.e. 40k scale) miniatures game.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The missions are a symptom of badly written core rules, basically from the ground up.
There is a balance between player narrative and overall narrative. Player narrative should weave into the overall narrative, not just be whatever. I can write 'whatever' narrative on the back of a napkin and even whip up some rules to play it.
How does player narrative not tie into the wider 40k story of "There is only war"? Unless you aren't actually hurting your enemies in the games you play and don't take any damage in return, I'd say you're playing into the overall narrative pretty well. We're talking about a setting the size of a galaxy where wars are won and lost by millions if not billions of lives. The rules of war don't exist and modern wars or even historic conflicts don't hold a torch to what 40k is. There are demi-gods and daemons walking around alongside Private Kevin and his laser gun. If you want GW to provide you with reasoning for every single possible narrative then you are nuts.
The fact that you don't apply your own logic to the rules is hilarious.
No, I am not actually hurting my enemies in return, nor am I being hurt.
I've had IG companies wiped out to a man - but no, they're back next week for more! Precious and irreplaceable artefacts, lost to the foe on the battlefield? No, we recovered the Blade of Conquest, silly.
It's Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain level stuff. "I'll get you next week, Enemy Army!!! And maybe that time I will WIN the rolloff to go first! Mwahahahahaahah!" Says the defeated villain whose stuff is all fine and so is his opponent's.
"Finally, the ancient and venerable Baneblade, Mars Triumphant, is destroyed, and the Chaos armies celebrate by destroying it again next week, and the week after that..."
The size 40k games are the numbers are irrelevant. Not even ig company is lost in typical 40k game(hundreds isn't norm) and we are talking galaxy where regiment lost is but a blip.
40k games are tiny insignificant skirmishes. Lose to a man 100 game and it's but a blip in radar. 40k games aren't big important battles.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The missions are a symptom of badly written core rules, basically from the ground up.
There is a balance between player narrative and overall narrative. Player narrative should weave into the overall narrative, not just be whatever. I can write 'whatever' narrative on the back of a napkin and even whip up some rules to play it.
How does player narrative not tie into the wider 40k story of "There is only war"? Unless you aren't actually hurting your enemies in the games you play and don't take any damage in return, I'd say you're playing into the overall narrative pretty well. We're talking about a setting the size of a galaxy where wars are won and lost by millions if not billions of lives. The rules of war don't exist and modern wars or even historic conflicts don't hold a torch to what 40k is. There are demi-gods and daemons walking around alongside Private Kevin and his laser gun. If you want GW to provide you with reasoning for every single possible narrative then you are nuts.
The fact that you don't apply your own logic to the rules is hilarious.
No, I am not actually hurting my enemies in return, nor am I being hurt.
I've had IG companies wiped out to a man - but no, they're back next week for more! Precious and irreplaceable artefacts, lost to the foe on the battlefield? No, we recovered the Blade of Conquest, silly.
It's Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain level stuff. "I'll get you next week, Enemy Army!!! And maybe that time I will WIN the rolloff to go first! Mwahahahahaahah!" Says the defeated villain whose stuff is all fine and so is his opponent's.
"Finally, the ancient and venerable Baneblade, Mars Triumphant, is destroyed, and the Chaos armies celebrate by destroying it again next week, and the week after that..."
The size 40k games are the numbers are irrelevant. Not even ig company is lost in typical 40k game(hundreds isn't norm) and we are talking galaxy where regiment lost is but a blip.
40k games are tiny insignificant skirmishes. Lose to a man 100 game and it's but a blip in radar. 40k games aren't big important battles.
Funny that literally the same folks keep coming back with the same relics and wargear and traits and MORE EXPERIENCE.
"no this Mars Triumphant is a different replacement one to the Mars Triumphant that you destroyed last week. Yes, same name and it gained XP and battle scars from that battle, but no yeah totally different tank and crew. A replacement." *Nodnod*
Unit1126PLL wrote: Funny that literally the same folks keep coming back with the same relics and wargear and traits and MORE EXPERIENCE.
"no this Mars Triumphant is a different replacement one to the Mars Triumphant that you destroyed last week. Yes, same name and it gained XP and battle scars from that battle, but no yeah totally different tank and crew. A replacement." *Nodnod*
This you?
Unit1126PLL wrote: Who, me? I am not insisting that at all. If that is what you are getting from my words, then I am sorry I failed to communicate well.
What you seem to want is every single game ever to be part of a massive narrative that never ends and every single person who plays 40khas to do the same. Sometimes people just want to chuck dice and hang out with friends for gods sake.
Dai wrote: I agree with unit, they could do a hell of a lot more when it comes to narrative scenarios but in order to do so the first thing they need to do is reduce lethality. The odd phyrric victory is perfectly fluffy, constant phyrric victories may be fluffy if you reallllly stretch it but it sure is boring for a game mode that is meant to encourage story telling.
How many off the narrative scenarios GW has released for 9th have you tried?
some bloke wrote: Regardign the phrase "if they made 40k properly it could be played on planet bowling ball", this is a nonsensical standpoint. It's along the same lines as "If the computer security was designed properly then it wouldn't matter if my password is "password"".
Cover and line of sight blocking is a needed part of the game to reduce lethality, deny targets, and so on. It's part of the game, as much as charging into close combat is. planet bowling ball will always favour the long ranged guns, because if it didn't, then cover would make them overpriced.
Line of sight and blocking isn't exclusive to terrain. You can have models block other models or give models LoS like in Warmahordes where all models have a 180 degree line of sight and can block LoS to models directly behind them.
The range of guns again is a separate problem. 40k already has a problem with the range of guns being universally too long and boards being too small. Again to point at Warmahordes it solves this by having gun ranges being very short. If I remember rightly "long range" in Warmahordes is 14" or so (this is the range of a rifle on a sniper themed model).
Again as Voss said it might not be FUN but it should be playable.
If you put the time in with like minded players its the same as always.
But if anyone is optimising, keeping up with rules, etc, and you aren't using scenarios that give you an advantage, the games are in no way enjoyable.
The imbalances are just too wide and the gameplay 'gotcha' style isn't pleasant (gotcha because you simply will have no inkling what the combo or card being played will do). The games are too long as well to easily play lots are learn and unless you bring in restrictions even less balanced at 500 points.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: I will slightly disagree with your Thermopylae metaphor. In 40K the 2 sides are equal whereas in the context of Persians and Greeks that small unit of Spartans delayed almost the entire Persian army. This enabled the Greeks to gather their manpower and organize against the Persian invasion. In 40K there isn't really that scale of conflict being reflected. Both sides are of equal stature and therefore each side is equally expendable. If you're going to claim that the defender was a delaying force then it couldn't have been defending much since the attacker isn't using overwhelming force to capture/overrun the objective/defenders to get to their goal. If you're going to play a Thermopylae type scenerio then the defender should have maybe 500 points to the attackers 2000. Both sides should start with CPs equal to what their starting points are (3 and 12 respectively). Then you declare that the defender has to keep the attacker from exiting some limited area of the map. Should the attacker not get X amount of points off the map before the end of Turn 5 the defender wins. Anything else the defender loses. That's a Thermopylae scenerio.
But armies don't have to be equal, that is just up to the scenario choice. 40k forces don't need to be equal and in many of the more interesting scenarios they aren't. A couple of weeks back I played an urban defence mission with 3000 points against a constantly reinforced attacker that had rolled through like 5000-6000 points of models by the end as destroyed units attacked again. Likewise, a traditional Meat Grinder mission from way back has usually been "attacker has twice the points, they win if the defender has zero models left at the end". Another personal favourite scenario, Glazer's Creek, has a 1000 point contingent of slowly whittled defenders up against multiple waves of more numerous enemies that break off when half of any single wave are killed. Like in Thermopylae, where the terrain prevented the Persians from using their massive numbers decisively, there is no stipulation that says a 40k game needs to be symmetric, even if that is usually desired for pick-up gaming. Nor do the numbers have to be reflective of the absolute forces available to each sides, as the games we play are localised snapshots of larger conflicts, mostly highlighting the rare mano-a-mano climaxes of months of arduous struggle.
The main point still remains the same: it is possible, and sensible, to see victories with heavy or total losses. That such casualty rates are arguably too common in 40k games is a wholly unrelated discussion, even if it seems that Unit can't separate the two and makes life that much harder for themselves.
As for scale, like I previously said, that's the narrative context to be taken outside the table. Any game that would care about the details of the fight at Thermopylae itself wouldn't care about the larger scale actions either beyond how it establishes the victory conditions: if a game did, it would be more akin to a hex'n'counter grand strategy game at a different level of abstraction.
In a system where narrative is included in missions, this can still happen. In fact, if the narrative was included in missions, we wouldn't have to make up why we won outside of a gamey stand in circle mission. We could have it so you needed people with particular skills to go forward and sever datalinks with electromagnetic weapons so their information can't reach their superior, or to collect weapons to resupply their troops.
The issue isn't that narrative can't possibly exist. I can pretend my Necrons stopped taking their Flintstones vitamins, and that's why they are weaker than Space Marines, and the one Marine unit that stole them get Transhuman physiology for a turn. But I don't have to if there's a narrative in the mission already there. It's not a lack of creativity on our part, it's a lack of creativity and an over reliance on the players not caring on Games Workshop's part.
Unit does have a lot of cool thoughts on narrative, and experience with other systems who do narrative in a way that he prefers. I do tend to respect his comments regarding narrative, though I often disagree.
But those missions that don't explain exactly "what" the objectives are seem to me to be the exact kind of missions that Unit needs, because one of the issues with Unit's preferences is that he doesn't like it when GW gives him too much detail, because when that happens, he doesn't feel like he's playing his dudes.
For example, MOST sisters try to advance in rank far enough that they can become sanctified enough to bless their fellow soldiers with the light of the emperor; many will aspire to sainthood; some will swear a penitent oath upon failure, and some who have sworn a penitent oath will redeem themselves. Many sisters players are grateful to have rules to do these things, but Unit has different things he wants to do with his sisters, so all this does is force him to not play his dudettes.
Most Archons do try to conquer territory in Commorragh to gain leverage over the minions they seek to recruit and most players like the minigame of fighting for territory, taking territory from rivals, earning the respect of the Trueborn or bloodbrides. But Unit doesn't want to do that either, cuz "not his dudes".
I suspect if in 9th edition 40k, if you created a mission like some of the Infinity scenarios mentioned- rescue civilians, hack data terms to interfere with environmental conditions, Unit would probably say "My dudes don't like civilians, why would rescue them- not my dudes, stop trying to shoehorn me into the Company's story and let me tell my own" or "my dudes aren't hackers though, and we like being surprised by battlefield conditions beyond our control because it tests our mettle and makes us stronger in the eyes of the emperor- not my dudes!"
I have a pet theory that if the game WASN'T 9th ed 40k, Unit would be fine with both of these missions... He generally seems to not only be fine with restrictions in other games, but seems to actually kind of like them- a progression system in Chain of Command that allowed him to choose from a handful of long term and handful of short term goals for his faction as well as a handful of battlefield actions that relate to those goals would probably seem flexible and satisfying to Unit, even though in 9th ed 40k such a thing would seem to merely limit the individuality of his dudes. But that's just a theory, and it isn't really fair to Unit for me to assume that, especially since it doesn't really move the discussion of 40k forward.
One thing that Unit and I do absolutely agree on is that GW should release a Big Book of Crusade. This would include tons of maps for folks who like to set things in the cannon verse; it would include several different campaign systems that GM's could use;it would contain additional short/ long term goals for each faction; most importantly perhaps, it would include a system for creating these things yourself so that you weren't limited by the specificity of premade story hooks.
As an example of something in Crusade that both Unit and I would like to see improved, lets look at planet and system generation in Crusade. So far, Tau, Genestealer Cults and Tyranids generate planets which they then seek to control. The current system has Tau generating an entire system of planets with Diplomatic and Military Thresholds, Assimilation abilities and Supply Line abilities. GSC, however, has you generating planets one at a time, and they have a balance of 4 Instituions that need to be infiltrated. The Tyranids also generate planets one at a time, but they have Biomass and Resistance Crushed Thresholds for each stage of their invasion.
Now what both Unit and I likely think is a more ideal solution is that there is a generic method for generating systems and the planets within them in such a way that they provide support for EVERY faction's Crusade. I can sort of fake it- like I can generate a system of planets using Tau rules, and then I can add Instituions, Biomass and Resistance Crushed Thresholds to the planets I've already created. But that isn't quite as elegant as a system that just gives you rules for bringing enough detail to a planet that every faction can meaningfully interact with that planet in their own way to further their own short and long term goals. A Big Book of Crusade would be the perfect place for such a system.
Gert wrote: What you seem to want is every single game ever to be part of a massive narrative that never ends and every single person who plays 40khas to do the same. Sometimes people just want to chuck dice and hang out with friends for gods sake.
Unit was pretty explicitly talking about narrative campaigns, not every casual pick-up game of 40K.
I tend to agree that for a narrative campaign, the Crusade system of coming back with the same forces every week, all resurrected and back to full health after being killed to a man last week, is weird. It also completely kills the idea that a 2000pt battle is just the pivotal part of a larger battlefield; the contrivance that explains why a character like Abaddon or Guilliman only ever seems to have a few dozen dudes in tow.
For a campaign, I would prefer a system that suggests I actually have an army at my disposal, fighting over a defined area of terrain, with asymmetric battles being possible depending on how forces are arrayed. There would have to be concessions to what I actually have in my collection, and a little bit of contrivance might still be needed ('no no, this isn't the Baneblade from last week, this is a totally different one that has never been seen in the same room'), but it wouldn't have to be too complicated. White Dwarf used to have campaigns like this.
To me it feels very much like Crusade is escalation-league gameplay first and narrative support second- which it seems is what Unit is criticizing.
Edit: And maybe it's not fair to criticize Crusade as being unsuited for campaigns; maybe that's not the intent to begin with, and it's really just meant to spice up playing against the same people with the same forces, and that's fine. Maybe the mission design where objectives are abstract tokens that give you abstract points for standing next to them work really well for tournament play and aren't intended to be narratively-focused, and that's fine. But I do think it is then fair to point out that those systems aren't narratively-focused, and explaining gameplay outcomes narratively requires post-hoc rationalization of the gameplay rather than the gameplay being designed to convey a narrative to begin with.
ccs wrote: What rubbish. The only thing you've gotten right in there is players needing to communicate. But that's been true since before 40k existed....
You do not need large collections & high degrees of system mastery to enjoy a game of 40k.
Likewise you can generally* get by the same models/army for many years.
Bruh if I bought clowns and my opponent bought Orks or Guard, no amount of communicating is gonna make games fun.
Then don't be TFG & bring clowns.
So you're saying if someone is attached to a unit or an army then 40k breaks down, you know- just like AnomaderRake said and you called "rubbish". Pick a lane mate.
I think you've selectively missed this bit of what I wrote:
"But seriously? Yes, there is some amount of communication that'll result in a fun game with those forces. And if you insist upon playing such a match-up outside a tourney then it's on you & your opponent to find out what that is."
Getting a decent game between two vastly un-equel forces requires some more effort than just walking into the shop & playing some random Matched Play mission.
some bloke wrote: Regardign the phrase "if they made 40k properly it could be played on planet bowling ball", this is a nonsensical standpoint. It's along the same lines as "If the computer security was designed properly then it wouldn't matter if my password is "password"".
Cover and line of sight blocking is a needed part of the game to reduce lethality, deny targets, and so on. It's part of the game, as much as charging into close combat is. planet bowling ball will always favour the long ranged guns, because if it didn't, then cover would make them overpriced.
Line of sight and blocking isn't exclusive to terrain. You can have models block other models or give models LoS like in Warmahordes where all models have a 180 degree line of sight and can block LoS to models directly behind them.
The range of guns again is a separate problem. 40k already has a problem with the range of guns being universally too long and boards being too small. Again to point at Warmahordes it solves this by having gun ranges being very short. If I remember rightly "long range" in Warmahordes is 14" or so (this is the range of a rifle on a sniper themed model).
Again as Voss said it might not be FUN but it should be playable.
I 100% agree that 40k has outgrown its boards. I think we should see ranges and movement cut by 1/3, to make the board feel like it is 1/3 bigger.
You can block units with other units, but then that grinds to a halt when the enemy uses their anti-tank first to blow up the tank you're hiding behind, then destroys what you've been hiding.
40k does work on planet bowling ball, but as you said, it's not fun - because nobody can hide from anyone, there's no tactical decisions, it's just whoever shoots first with their big guns will win. I remember this from when I was young and staring out with oldcrons, and we had basically 0 scenery - 2 of those old ruin corners, and some trees which always fell over. that was it, there was no hiding except behind your big models. The only things which could screen was the monolith and the landraider, because AV14 was king. Whilst the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia may disagree, those days were less fun than these days because the long range guns of the Chaos always won against the amost-universal 24" range of the oldcrons (plus they disappeared at 25% so the games usually ended abruptly).
Honestly half the game is the terrain - because it's unknown, so you can't build your tactics perfectly. If you know you're playing on planet bowling ball, then you make half your army built to kill tanks, and half your army built to kill infantry, and do it all at long range, and you've probably won, because your tactics can be employed perfectly. It's not fun, but it works.
The game is in the best place I can ever remember and I've been playing since rogue trader.
There are many ways to play; Crusade, Matched play, Tempest of war.
The competitive scene isn't perfect, everyone knows Tyranids and CWE need to be hit with the nerf bat, but that's a question of when not if.
If you look at tournaments there is actually a lot of diversity outside of the problem factions.
The armour of contempt change was superb.
I also play Orks and our codex does have some issues with the amount of -1 to hit in the game on a faction that already hits on 5+ and we don't hit as hard in combat as we should,
there are some competitive options though, look at the mortal wounds / bomb squig build that just finished well at Washington State GT.
I think Orks will get some help, GW have demonstrated that they are trying to balance with regular updates.
For that reason alone the game is the best it's ever been.
It's awful. They just keep roiding up Space Marines and leave xenos units with former parity in the dust.
What dust, through out the entire span of 9th marines were at the top for a few weeks at the very start of the edition, and for a similar split second for the BT and GK books. Compare that to how long Harlequins were top army in 9th or DE, how can you even say that xeno armies are being left in the dust, when they are the ones who are generaly better the marines. And I am talking all marines taken as one group. Because if we were to be really pendantic and compare how well IF have done to lets say all the different eldar factions, it would look a lot more grim.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
To the OP - that sounds way off. Next time you play, Ask your opponent to detail why everything is hitting on 2s.
Recently faced a Drukhari player who was claiming everything hit on 2s. Did not want to dive into his Codex too much, but the guy at the next table noticed he was just citing the names of rules that did not apply to the units as he claimed. Turned out my opponent was just making stuff up to win.
The thing about 9th edition - some factions have dense rulesets that are difficult to understand if you don't personally play them. Any time there's a lot of complexity, expect someone to use it for their advantage.
It's awful. They just keep roiding up Space Marines and leave xenos units with former parity in the dust.
What dust, through out the entire span of 9th marines were at the top for a few weeks at the very start of the edition, and for a similar split second for the BT and GK books. Compare that to how long Harlequins were top army in 9th or DE, how can you even say that xeno armies are being left in the dust, when they are the ones who are generaly better the marines. And I am talking all marines taken as one group. Because if we were to be really pendantic and compare how well IF have done to lets say all the different eldar factions, it would look a lot more grim.
My concern is not army win rates, but individual models vs individual models. In a fight between an equal number of Space Marines and (pick xenos unit), Space Marines have continuously inflated over the years. Back in the day, 5 Space Marines vs 5 Dire Avengers was a roughly equal match. Right now Space Marines just roflstomp them. This is a gakky situation, imo.
From my expiriance the basic eldar stuff was never a DA warrior. Marines or even meq problem, is that they actually have to try to play with stuff that has meq stats and meq points costs. Most xeno armies may have their ork boys, guants , DA etc but those are not the army maker. For the short time where orks were really good, the basic ork was a buggy. At the end of 8th when Inari were still okey vs 2.0 marines, and deadly against everything else, the basic eldar was a plane. The tyranid under crusher stamped was a monster, and it stayed like that under the codex or rather got agravated as now more monsters are very good and very undercosted.
And it goes on and like this. It is very rare then the actual basic units with the basic stats of a faction become the work horse of a faction. Ad mecha had that, although one does have to say that the flyers, dragoons etc helped a lot. Knights have it too, but even for custodes the basic mook is a dude on a jetbike. For GK the basic GK was a NDK or an interceptor, which I guess is the closest one can get to a regular meq stat line being good. BT pulll it off too, although in their case a marine point cost combined with a blanket inv buff from the high marshel had bit impact too.
So in the end, if the basic ork or eldar was on pair with a marine, and everything else in those armies was beating marines by a mile in point efficiency, resiliance or , and sometimes and, fire power playing marines would be a bit like playing necron right now. Only with ctan.
Karol wrote: From my expiriance the basic eldar stuff was never a DA warrior. Marines or even meq problem, is that they actually have to try to play with stuff that has meq stats and meq points costs. Most xeno armies may have their ork boys, guants , DA etc but those are not the army maker. For the short time where orks were really good, the basic ork was a buggy. At the end of 8th when Inari were still okey vs 2.0 marines, and deadly against everything else, the basic eldar was a plane. The tyranid under crusher stamped was a monster, and it stayed like that under the codex or rather got agravated as now more monsters are very good and very undercosted.
And it goes on and like this. It is very rare then the actual basic units with the basic stats of a faction become the work horse of a faction. Ad mecha had that, although one does have to say that the flyers, dragoons etc helped a lot. Knights have it too, but even for custodes the basic mook is a dude on a jetbike. For GK the basic GK was a NDK or an interceptor, which I guess is the closest one can get to a regular meq stat line being good. BT pulll it off too, although in their case a marine point cost combined with a blanket inv buff from the high marshel had bit impact too.
So in the end, if the basic ork or eldar was on pair with a marine, and everything else in those armies was beating marines by a mile in point efficiency, resiliance or , and sometimes and, fire power playing marines would be a bit like playing necron right now. Only with ctan.
If your experience is that the "basic Eldar is a plane", then there are other balance issues to be addressed. And there are ways to address it without shoving a factions main "battle line" units further and further down the stack either.
AoC is a shameful buff. I say this as a Marine player. Marines are encroaching on Tyranid Warrior territorry now, which is just disgusting, and I make no mention of Heavy Intercessors either.
JNAProductions wrote: Karol, how do you think the following should compare to a Tac Marine or an Intercessor, on a one-to-one, model-to-model basis?
Necron Warrior
Tyranid Warrior
Dire Avenger (or other aspects, if you like)
Ork Boy
Ork Nob
Not intended for me, I know, but:
Necron warriors should be like 1.5 ish marines
Tyranid warriors should be like 2.5
Aspects should be like .7 (if they’re not doing what they’re good at) to like 2 (doing what they’re good at) {I don’t know eldar very much, so block of salt there}
Ork boyz should be able to crack a marine with two boyz to every marine in melee, shoota boyz are never going to make sense, let’s be honest.
Ork nobz should be beastly mini bosses that can krump a whole 5 man squad.
JNAProductions wrote: Karol, how do you think the following should compare to a Tac Marine or an Intercessor, on a one-to-one, model-to-model basis?
Necron Warrior
Tyranid Warrior
Dire Avenger (or other aspects, if you like)
Ork Boy
Ork Nob
Not intended for me, I know, but:
Necron warriors should be like 1.5 ish marines
Tyranid warriors should be like 2.5
Aspects should be like .7 (if they’re not doing what they’re good at) to like 2 (doing what they’re good at) {I don’t know eldar very much, so block of salt there}
Ork boyz should be able to crack a marine with two boyz to every marine in melee, shoota boyz are never going to make sense, let’s be honest.
Ork nobz should be beastly mini bosses that can krump a whole 5 man squad.
Nah dude, I like clowns and it's the army I have the most of right now. I have a few orks but not really a full army and the codex sucks and is unfun, so I'm not going to build them until the army changes.
ccs wrote: But seriously? Yes, there is some amount of communication that'll result in a fun game with those forces.
Citation needed. It sounds like you're "There must be such a solution, because if there isn't than that means two new players can't have a fun game, and it's forbidden to say that two new players can't have a fun game because then you'd have to lay the blame at GW's feet."
ccs wrote: And if you insist upon playing such a match-up outside a tourney then it's on you & your opponent to find out what that is.
How about it's GW's responsibility to make a functioning game?
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tneva82 wrote: And that's why points aren't really for balance. Just to facilite quick game with some semblance of idea that you might be at least SOMEWHERE in the same galaxy for balanced game.
Then why does undercosting (or overcosting) units create an unbalanced game?
No it wasn't. It's another rule to remember, a symptom of their inflated weapon stats, and tells Ork and Necron players that they're losers for buying those factions and wanting to have fun.
These stats roughly being based (and not enough consideration given) on datasheet stats, weapon options, strats, etc. With Close-Combat being separated from Move (which greatly adjusts Close Combat power by dictating who hits first). Move being more than base movement, but considering Advance and Charge bonuses. And finally, rough Cost being a ballpark relation between the number of units purchased for roughly the cost of a Tactical/Intercessor. All numbers listed should be considered to have a tolerance of +/- 2 at least.
Special note: I personally like the idea of Necrons having a Troop choice notably weaker than marines (Warriors) to overwhelm in a horde style army. While, at the same time, having a noticeably stronger Troop choice (Immortals) than marines to allow a Necron player to have a hyper-Elite army that demonstrates the technologically superior undead robots. Thus allowing previous lore and more of a sci-fi undead horde style of play to be possible.
Imo the brilliance of the 3rd ed Necron codex was that it found a way to encourage a horde of elite Warriors, while still providing a way to defeat it through Phase Out. Amazingly cool design.
These stats roughly being based (and not enough consideration given) on datasheet stats, weapon options, strats, etc. With Close-Combat being separated from Move (which greatly adjusts Close Combat power by dictating who hits first). Move being more than base movement, but considering Advance and Charge bonuses. And finally, rough Cost being a ballpark relation between the number of units purchased for roughly the cost of a Tactical/Intercessor. All numbers listed should be considered to have a tolerance of +/- 2 at least.
Special note: I personally like the idea of Necrons having a Troop choice notably weaker than marines (Warriors) to overwhelm in a horde style army. While, at the same time, having a noticeably stronger Troop choice (Immortals) than marines to allow a Necron player to have a hyper-Elite army that demonstrates the technologically superior undead robots. Thus allowing previous lore and more of a sci-fi undead horde style of play to be possible.
I agree with most of this list, but I would make Custodes Guardians just straight 6's. And cost 3. They aren't all SCs and they are swinging some really powerful weapons in CC. Their gear makes them up from 2.5.
Also, I don't know Nid's at all. Why should a Tyranid Warrior cost MORE than a Space marine? Aren't they still 1 wound, and worse BS/WS?
These stats roughly being based (and not enough consideration given) on datasheet stats, weapon options, strats, etc. With Close-Combat being separated from Move (which greatly adjusts Close Combat power by dictating who hits first). Move being more than base movement, but considering Advance and Charge bonuses. And finally, rough Cost being a ballpark relation between the number of units purchased for roughly the cost of a Tactical/Intercessor. All numbers listed should be considered to have a tolerance of +/- 2 at least.
Special note: I personally like the idea of Necrons having a Troop choice notably weaker than marines (Warriors) to overwhelm in a horde style army. While, at the same time, having a noticeably stronger Troop choice (Immortals) than marines to allow a Necron player to have a hyper-Elite army that demonstrates the technologically superior undead robots. Thus allowing previous lore and more of a sci-fi undead horde style of play to be possible.
With orks at that, ugh. You don’t really get this do you?
Insectum7 wrote: Imo the brilliance of the 3rd ed Necron codex was that it found a way to encourage a horde of elite Warriors, while still providing a way to defeat it through Phase Out. Amazingly cool design.
Back when they had good ideas. Sigh.
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Also, I don't know Nid's at all. Why should a Tyranid Warrior cost MORE than a Space marine? Aren't they still 1 wound, and worse BS/WS?
Tyranid Warriors are 3w models. Maybe you're confusing them with Termagants/Hormagaunts?
Of course if two players only have 2000 points each of miniatures and one brings orks while the other one brings harlequins chances to have a good time are pretty low.
how many teens do you think start the game by buying 6000pts of any army, or multiple armies at 2000pts? This is some avarge player is a 30+ year old returning to the game after X years, while having a few armies stashed already and another few bought or ordered from ebay.
I started orks at 12 . Took me 3-4 years to get a "complete" army. In the meanwhile I played against people my age, proxying regularly. I see no shame in that. I don't think a kid that age should be a regular at stores playing WYSIWYG competitive games against 30+ old dudes.
No it wasn't. It's another rule to remember, a symptom of their inflated weapon stats, and tells Ork and Necron players that they're losers for buying those factions and wanting to have fun.
As an ork player I praised the AoC rule. I think it's fair to boost some armies that needed a buff. Of course now those armies don't need to be more killy to compensate the AoC effect in mirror matches, but unfortunately SM players are already complaining, especially about their bolters (even if some of them, among the most common ones, are functionally AP-2).
tneva82 wrote: Funny thing is...wars don't generally irl be decided by who kills most stuff. So why you insist 40k has to?
Simply because 40k is not about wars, but about small engagements
and squad or platoon level skirmish battles with equal sized forces, without strategic support or with a larger force moving around, were decided by the one who killed the other first
wars are won by things 40k does not even try to cover, even the strategic assets to win battles are not covered by the rules/scenarios
and we are not even talking about that 40k does not try to simulate anything from real live but tries to be a game to entertain people
nothing the game is doing is going is related to "in real live"
JNAProductions wrote: Karol, how do you think the following should compare to a Tac Marine or an Intercessor, on a one-to-one, model-to-model basis?
Necron Warrior Tyranid Warrior Dire Avenger (or other aspects, if you like) Ork Boy Ork Nob
Not intended for me, I know, but:
Necron warriors should be like 1.5 ish marines Tyranid warriors should be like 2.5 Aspects should be like .7 (if they’re not doing what they’re good at) to like 2 (doing what they’re good at) {I don’t know eldar very much, so block of salt there} Ork boyz should be able to crack a marine with two boyz to every marine in melee, shoota boyz are never going to make sense, let’s be honest. Ork nobz should be beastly mini bosses that can krump a whole 5 man squad.
^Those are decent numbers to me.
Agree, sounds good to me as well, though traditionally shoota boyz should be 2 = 1 bolter marine, but with worse range.
kodos wrote: and squad or platoon level skirmish battles with equal sized forces, without strategic support or with a larger force moving around, were decided by the one who killed the other first
I'd've gone with "he who breaks the opponent's morale first, wins" in that sort of situation, which doesn't imply killing the entire OPFOR - nor even the majority of them, depending on the quality of troops on both sides.
yes, with a situation were moral as in "runs away if too much gak happens" this would be true
but in 40k this is not a thing as each army has the possibility to avoid "moral"
40k is were 2 troops/platoons meet were breaking the moral is not the option because the soldiers don't have one
this happened in real live as well, were no one gives up until all are dead or they are ordered to retreat
on a larger scale this might look different in 40k as well, but a troop Space Marines fighting a troop Tyranid Warriors, there is no breaking the moral
on a large scale were it would be important to interrupt command structures, and "moral" would be affected by this (Tyranids as well as Marines), yes
but 40k still focus on single soldier vs single soldier combat in the rules, so this level of moral does not exist
No they don´t. They release products for whales and not gamers.
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TheBestBucketHead wrote: In Infinity, I don't have to forge the narrative. ITS missions, meaning missions used in tournaments, are what many people here would consider narrative missions.
There's one where you have to rescue civilians, where killing them loses you points, and you need specialists who can grab them.
There's a mission where frostbyte will kill any troops in the exclusion zones if they aren't Heavy Infantry, in a Mech suit, or are a robot, and you can use hackers to turn off heating devices to kill them.
You can do missions with High Value Targets, who you need to capture and bring into your zone, or rescue from the enemy, all while trying to do your secondaries.
I know these wouldn't work as well in 40k, but this proves that they can do missions where I don't have to forge the narrative. They have amazing models in a universe I love, but they can't provide me a good narrative unless I do it myself?
4th 40K had a pretty good selection of scenarios. However in the grim future are no civilians to be found cuz Gee-Dubs never released models for them. Later on people almost exclusively played either "Kill ´em all", "Occupy board quarters" or "Sit X turns at objective token to earn X pts."
catbarf wrote: Unit was pretty explicitly talking about narrative campaigns, not every casual pick-up game of 40K.
It didn't seem obvious at all considering they were criticising everything anyone brought up.
I tend to agree that for a narrative campaign, the Crusade system of coming back with the same forces every week, all resurrected and back to full health after being killed to a man last week, is weird. It also completely kills the idea that a 2000pt battle is just the pivotal part of a larger battlefield; the contrivance that explains why a character like Abaddon or Guilliman only ever seems to have a few dozen dudes in tow.
For a campaign, I would prefer a system that suggests I actually have an army at my disposal, fighting over a defined area of terrain, with asymmetric battles being possible depending on how forces are arrayed. There would have to be concessions to what I actually have in my collection, and a little bit of contrivance might still be needed ('no no, this isn't the Baneblade from last week, this is a totally different one that has never been seen in the same room'), but it wouldn't have to be too complicated. White Dwarf used to have campaigns like this.
To me it feels very much like Crusade is escalation-league gameplay first and narrative support second- which it seems is what Unit is criticizing.
Except we've already established that casualties doesn't mean death. Unless you explicitly decide for that to be the case, every single removed model could simply be made combat ineffective and retreated during or after the battle. It's also up to you to decide the time frame between your games. So far the only person who has made it seem bad is Unit who has seemingly insisted that every single casualty is a death and that the IRL time between games is also the in-universe time.
As for the bit about 2k games, that's also a you decision especially since Crusade isn't meant to be exclusively played at 2k points. In fact, 40k isn't meant to be exclusively played at 2k points. In each Crusade book, there are 6 missions for each game size leading to 24 missions overall. The Crusade Roster can be set to any Power level as well, so you could very well say everyone has a 100 Power limit but then play Combat Patrol games for a month. Crusade is only an escalation system if you choose to make it an escalation system. Blaming GW because you haven't read the rules is just stupid. If you only look at the missions of course you are going to miss the Crusade rules themselves. Crusade is very good for adding simple narrative triggers that the individual player can work to their story.
Edit: And maybe it's not fair to criticize Crusade as being unsuited for campaigns; maybe that's not the intent to begin with, and it's really just meant to spice up playing against the same people with the same forces, and that's fine. Maybe the mission design where objectives are abstract tokens that give you abstract points for standing next to them work really well for tournament play and aren't intended to be narratively-focused, and that's fine. But I do think it is then fair to point out that those systems aren't narratively-focused, and explaining gameplay outcomes narratively requires post-hoc rationalization of the gameplay rather than the gameplay being designed to convey a narrative to begin with.
This goes back to the point I made earlier regarding the scale of 40k. Abstract objectives work better since the players can decide what they are. A marker is just a marker unless it represents something else. One of my Deathwatch Agendas is to recover Xenotech, so in our game, we used one of the mini Necron pylons to represent a cache of technology I had to recover. For a game with a Doomsday device, we used an uprighted Deathstrike missile. Leaving it to the player to decide means people aren't shoehorned into one specific type of scenario where a T'au army and an Ork army have to recover Imperial escape pods or Imperial terminals like in the past.
To the OP: No, it's not unplayable. There are bad matchups, which you can avoid with care, but you need a decent sense of the game rules and meta.
I know how you feel, though. My most recent game was my Ork Speed Mob vs Harlequins (post nerf), which was one of the worst games of 40K I've ever experienced. Harlequins got turn 1, quickly moved up to destroy half my army, and my shooting and charges on my turn 1 only managed to kill a single model, while I suffered more losses in CC. The game was over turn 1, and I would have been wiped turn 2. In retrospect, there was little I could have done better, except get turn 1. Orks are simply not in a good place right now, lacking resilience while being toothless against Aeldari of all flavors. Unless you want to wait for a balance patch, the only way to fix this is getting your opponents to adjust their lists.
kodos wrote: yes, with a situation were moral as in "runs away if too much gak happens" this would be true
but in 40k this is not a thing as each army has the possibility to avoid "moral"
40k is were 2 troops/platoons meet were breaking the moral is not the option because the soldiers don't have one
this happened in real live as well, were no one gives up until all are dead or they are ordered to retreat
on a larger scale this might look different in 40k as well, but a troop Space Marines fighting a troop Tyranid Warriors, there is no breaking the moral
on a large scale were it would be important to interrupt command structures, and "moral" would be affected by this (Tyranids as well as Marines), yes
but 40k still focus on single soldier vs single soldier combat in the rules, so this level of moral does not exist
Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k. Many faction had ways to mitigate it, but even Space Marines could be run off the board in earlier editions. Leveraging morale was a very viable thing to do in a number of circumstances.
The game is very playable if your metric for fun isn't that you must go to LVO/Adepticon and place in the top 10. There are some armies that are a bit like climbing a cliff(Tyranids at this point), but overall a fun game can be had most of the time. If anything it depends on the player you face whether the game is fun or not.
The 6s to hit for you and their 2+ to hit sounds weird. Hard to comment on that unless there is more information.
Gert wrote: Except we've already established that casualties doesn't mean death. Unless you explicitly decide for that to be the case, every single removed model could simply be made combat ineffective and retreated during or after the battle. It's also up to you to decide the time frame between your games.
Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?
I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k. Many faction had ways to mitigate it, but even Space Marines could be run off the board in earlier editions. Leveraging morale was a very viable thing to do in a number of circumstances.
It still is for some factions. It's the reason why you never see squads of boyz or gretchins that are bigger than their min size, it's why you see only solo mek gunz instead of squadrons, etc...
Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.
and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now
not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)
Gert wrote: Except we've already established that casualties doesn't mean death. Unless you explicitly decide for that to be the case, every single removed model could simply be made combat ineffective and retreated during or after the battle. It's also up to you to decide the time frame between your games.
Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?
I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
catbarf wrote: Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?
I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Taken to its logical conclusion this just means you can't have stories in 40k with the same characters that last more than about 3 games?
I mean you can start nitpicking over 40k lore (i.e. back when they were no more than 1000 strong Marine Chapters are far too small in the context of the universe to A) do anything B) last more than 30 seconds on a battlefield). But that's kind of boring.
When we look at say formations in WW2 - you get stories. A brigade or regiment isn't necessary deleted from history just because it suffers heavy casualties. They get reinforcements etc. It might be a bit comic book that "Sergeant Geoff" always makes it through - but I'm unclear why that's a bad thing. Or why its proving some impossible thing to imagine.
Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.
and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now
not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)
Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?
Morale was totally a thing up into 7th edition. Sure, there were ways to mitigate it buuut. . . That already means it's having an effect on your army construction and play. And "losing a turn" to morale was a hefty, but non lethal effect. Similarly, losing an entire squad to Sweeping Advance after failing a morale test in CC was devastating to several armies. All of these effects are good things for the game, as it helps diversify units without mereling resorting to Damage In/Out.
I hated how Sweeping Advance was done. WHFB has a similar thing, and my group all agreed to change it to auto hits for every model that catches up, with no retaliation. It still manages to be devastating, but it doesn't completely kill the enemy unit for losing one more guy than you.
Insectum7 wrote: Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?.
by doing 1 model attacks, roll to hit, roll to wound, chose target model, roll saves, remove casualty, repeat for the next model until all models in the unit have attacked in the core rules
catbarf wrote: Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?
I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Taken to its logical conclusion this just means you can't have stories in 40k with the same characters that last more than about 3 games?
I mean you can start nitpicking over 40k lore (i.e. back when they were no more than 1000 strong Marine Chapters are far too small in the context of the universe to A) do anything B) last more than 30 seconds on a battlefield). But that's kind of boring.
When we look at say formations in WW2 - you get stories. A brigade or regiment isn't necessary deleted from history just because it suffers heavy casualties. They get reinforcements etc. It might be a bit comic book that "Sergeant Geoff" always makes it through - but I'm unclear why that's a bad thing. Or why its proving some impossible thing to imagine.
Lots of games provide some degree of plot armor for named characters, but otherwise units can take casualties (and fielded at reduced strength), be replenished, or be wiped out entirely. But you are touching on a related issue, which is that the current level of lethality gets in the way of trying to convey character narrative without extreme contrivance.
If you want to use WW2 formations as an analogy, what battalion or regiment repeatedly sustained near-total or total casualties but was always fully replenished to starting strength before the next battle? The ebb and flow of elements suffering attrition while gaining experience, with occasional influx of reinforcements to bolster the numbers but dilute the overall experience of the formation, equipment lost and equipment salvaged, plus the strategic context in which the battles were fought- that's an actual story. But sometimes the story ends with the unit actually wiped out and disbanded; so maybe you need to be telling the story of the operation as a whole, not just one element within it.
catbarf wrote: Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?
I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
I never said that no casualties were deaths, I said you could do that if you wanted. But if you're just going to nitpick every single possible instance of casualty in 40k then you aren't worth my time.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
Insectum7 wrote: Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?.
by doing 1 model attacks, roll to hit, roll to wound, chose target model, roll saves, remove casualty, repeat for the next model until all models in the unit have attacked in the core rules
Eh, they all still move about and take actions as units though, and thankfully we dont have the "closest individual model tanks hits then gets removed" nonsense of 5th or 6th (?).
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TheBestBucketHead wrote: I hated how Sweeping Advance was done. WHFB has a similar thing, and my group all agreed to change it to auto hits for every model that catches up, with no retaliation. It still manages to be devastating, but it doesn't completely kill the enemy unit for losing one more guy than you.
Fair enough, but your experience sure shows how much of an effect the morale rules could have.
And it really helped Marines play up to some of the bolterporn lore too. Marines could absolutely butcher guardsmen when you assaulted them, even with small units. It gave you the gleeful result of slaughter, but didn't require the seemingly endless boosting of stats that we have now.
Speaking of, morale is insanely important in WHFB 6th, as a failed Morale can spread across the whole army if you get particularly unlucky, so even with the nerf to sweeping advance, you can still get run off the board, get in a a state where you keep breaking because you keep losing the same combat, and we made it so you count as charging during a combat after a sweeping advance, so you fight first. I once won a battle off nothing besides Fear and outnumbering the opponent, getting just enough kills to cause people to auto break and flee off the board.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
I feel like while not "The best" its ever been its definitely in a really good spot. The game developers for the first time ever are making an effort at balance, AND OFTEN! compared to the years of dead codexes (looking at you Dark Eldar) or obvious issues that sat unfixed for over a year (looking at you all of 7th edition). Its not perfect and some armies such as Guard are falling flat for the most part its very playable. Make sure you establish what kind of game you want to play because as in ANY edition you can take a tournament list against an opponent who is looking at playing a narrative army and it can be lopsided. Another thing to consider is that the game is no longer that of KILL KILL KILL!!!!! and that taking objectives and playing the missions is a huge part of what the game is. This has been a big shock to me, having played since 2000 where missions were often suggestions more than how you win the game. Learning how all this works has really changed how I look at army composition and even tactics. While taking the biggest guns can help it can be a matter of playing units that can accomplish a very particular goal, be it speed, stopping power, or the ability to weather fire. Try joining a local escalation league it can be a huge eye opener and learning experience, thats why I suck less with my Sisters now!
There are many reasons a force might withdraw from battle. Morale is the most common in Earth's history, but wargames typically leverage the following options as well:
- Insufficient material. If you can't win the battle (or the win gains you less than you lose), you may as well withdraw. Of course, this is only possible if your losses actually matter, unlike a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain
- irreplaceable men or material: something like a Terminator Suit (especially cataphractii for Chaos) or a Baneblade will be less likely to be applied in risky situations, and will be more likely to be withdrawn if things go south (rather than just letting it die)
Of course, these only matter if models actually die.
Plus, there are rules to model the outside force in a campaign. Take the aforementioned At The Sharp End:
Each campaign tracks 3 things:
1) men's morale beneath you (this isn't a measure of "willingness to fight" but more "willingness to follow your commander specifically" though they are related)
2) your commanding officer's opinion above you (how your direct superior and his superiors feel about you)
3) your morale: probably the least important but useful for narrative (e.g. your lieutenant/warlord could be under pressure from superiors and have the Stressed category, despite great success in the campaign so far)
These have the following ways in which they change:
1) men's morale is affected by casualties. The more men dead in the platoon, the less likely they are to follow your orders
2) commander's opinion is determined by how many wins you have. More winningness is greater commander satisfaction with you
3) your morale is the interaction between those two.
The in-game effects:
1) your Force Morale goes down (meaning your units are more likely to fail to be commanded, because they won't listen to a blood-soaked commander)
2) your Support Points go down (your Commanding Officer doesn't reinforce failure, so if you keep losing he moves his support assets elsewhere)
3) no effect but useful for narrative.
This means that a campaign commander must carefully balance the casualties he suffers with whether or not he can win. Winning with low casualties constantly is the key to victory... but is obviously very hard. The precise tipping point where "winning isn't worth it because I am losing too many men" must be weighed by the commander (you) carefully, as is withdrawing without winning because you are allocated less support.
generalchaos34 wrote: I feel like while not "The best" its ever been its definitely in a really good spot. The game developers for the first time ever are making an effort at balance, AND OFTEN! compared to the years of dead codexes (looking at you Dark Eldar) or obvious issues that sat unfixed for over a year (looking at you all of 7th edition). Its not perfect and some armies such as Guard are falling flat for the most part its very playable. Make sure you establish what kind of game you want to play because as in ANY edition you can take a tournament list against an opponent who is looking at playing a narrative army and it can be lopsided. Another thing to consider is that the game is no longer that of KILL KILL KILL!!!!! and that taking objectives and playing the missions is a huge part of what the game is. This has been a big shock to me, having played since 2000 where missions were often suggestions more than how you win the game. Learning how all this works has really changed how I look at army composition and even tactics. While taking the biggest guns can help it can be a matter of playing units that can accomplish a very particular goal, be it speed, stopping power, or the ability to weather fire. Try joining a local escalation league it can be a huge eye opener and learning experience, thats why I suck less with my Sisters now!
Im not sure what game you are playing but i dont think its current 40k. Becuase the balance of 40k is currently hands down, with out question the WORST its ever been.
"Balance" updates are some of the most blatantly obvious marketing tactics ever. With codex creep being the worst i have seen since i started playing back around the end of 5th ed. Codexs now are almost predictable in their power ranking of new codex will be top tier for like 2 months then go through a massive nerf after sales from the tournament crowd.
The balance changes that do go in, are just direct reflections of tournament issues. This is easily proved by the fact that you have armies like guard who have been bottom tier for pretty much all of 9th, and have not gotten touched outside of near joke levels of "buffs" why? because they are not making problems on the tournament scene.
GW manged to take the worst aspects of MtG the burn and churn marketing and brought it into 40k, where old metas get invalidated because the new metas basically are designed specifically to counter them.
This idea that the game is no longer "kill kill kill" once more im not sure what game you are playing but that's the vast majority of matches any more, with alpha striking now being about as bad as it was in late 7th, 9th ed missions have been the most boring they have ever been.
Like i said, i got no idea what game you are playing but from what you are discribing it sure as heck at 9th ed 40k. Unless you are playing in a garage group that does not interact with the average player.
Hell i forgot to even include the fact that 9th is also probably the farthest from the original intent of warhammer that i have seen. Warhammer 40k has always been about playing dramatic and thematic battles, with lots of things like challenges, death and glory, look out sirs ect ect, and 9th ed has none of that. The games dramatic rules and thematic play styles got ripped out in favor of "balanced" rules because "It cuased less arguments" but really it just made the game worse and a shadow of its former self. Its boring, its bland.
In a world of 32 flavors, 9th ed 40k is the ice cream scoop water.
Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.
and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now
not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)
Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?
Morale was totally a thing up into 7th edition. Sure, there were ways to mitigate it buuut. . . That already means it's having an effect on your army construction and play. And "losing a turn" to morale was a hefty, but non lethal effect. Similarly, losing an entire squad to Sweeping Advance after failing a morale test in CC was devastating to several armies. All of these effects are good things for the game, as it helps diversify units without mereling resorting to Damage In/Out.
All of those effects you talked about amounted to damage in/damage out. Especially sweeping advance, which was one of the dumbest rules in the game in 7th (my 135pt Saint Celestine killed 1 Necron warrior out of your brick of 20, you fail moral, Celestine is I7 so she auto sweeps. You lose your entire brick of warriors with no resurrection protocols). Losing a turn to pinning or whatever was a death-sentence. Just about any unit became a free killpoint.
In terms of diversifying units, it did what current morale does. Diversifies 'does see play' from 'doesn't see play'.
catbarf wrote: Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?
I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
I never said that no casualties were deaths, I said you could do that if you wanted. But if you're just going to nitpick every single possible instance of casualty in 40k then you aren't worth my time.
You said 'every single removed model could simply be made combat ineffective and retreated during or after the battle'. How's it nitpicking to point out examples where that makes no sense and a unit really actually truly should be dead and gone, but the rules don't facilitate it?
It's the Crusade rules that tacitly say no casualties are deaths when every model comes back good as new after each battle, with at worst a battle scar. I guess I can narratively decide that my officer was killed- and then his replacement is identical. Long-lost twin brother taking up the mantle, I guess, but then why all the same battle honors and scars? The contortions needed to rationalize this are what makes it feel to me more like a fun progression system rather than any kind of narrative structure.
It would be perfect for representing that Ork warband that is continuously resurrected each day to fight and die again for Khorne's amusement, though.
generalchaos34 wrote: I feel like while not "The best" its ever been its definitely in a really good spot. The game developers for the first time ever are making an effort at balance, AND OFTEN! compared to the years of dead codexes (looking at you Dark Eldar) or obvious issues that sat unfixed for over a year (looking at you all of 7th edition). Its not perfect and some armies such as Guard are falling flat for the most part its very playable. Make sure you establish what kind of game you want to play because as in ANY edition you can take a tournament list against an opponent who is looking at playing a narrative army and it can be lopsided. Another thing to consider is that the game is no longer that of KILL KILL KILL!!!!! and that taking objectives and playing the missions is a huge part of what the game is. This has been a big shock to me, having played since 2000 where missions were often suggestions more than how you win the game. Learning how all this works has really changed how I look at army composition and even tactics. While taking the biggest guns can help it can be a matter of playing units that can accomplish a very particular goal, be it speed, stopping power, or the ability to weather fire. Try joining a local escalation league it can be a huge eye opener and learning experience, thats why I suck less with my Sisters now!
Im not sure what game you are playing but i dont think its current 40k. Becuase the balance of 40k is currently hands down, with out question the WORST its ever been.
"Balance" updates are some of the most blatantly obvious marketing tactics ever. With codex creep being the worst i have seen since i started playing back around the end of 5th ed. Codexs now are almost predictable in their power ranking of new codex will be top tier for like 2 months then go through a massive nerf after sales from the tournament crowd.
The balance changes that do go in, are just direct reflections of tournament issues. This is easily proved by the fact that you have armies like guard who have been bottom tier for pretty much all of 9th, and have not gotten touched outside of near joke levels of "buffs" why? because they are not making problems on the tournament scene.
GW manged to take the worst aspects of MtG the burn and churn marketing and brought it into 40k, where old metas get invalidated because the new metas basically are designed specifically to counter them.
This idea that the game is no longer "kill kill kill" once more im not sure what game you are playing but that's the vast majority of matches any more, with alpha striking now being about as bad as it was in late 7th, 9th ed missions have been the most boring they have ever been.
Like i said, i got no idea what game you are playing but from what you are discribing it sure as heck at 9th ed 40k. Unless you are playing in a garage group that does not interact with the average player.
Hell i forgot to even include the fact that 9th is also probably the farthest from the original intent of warhammer that i have seen. Warhammer 40k has always been about playing dramatic and thematic battles, with lots of things like challenges, death and glory, look out sirs ect ect, and 9th ed has none of that. The games dramatic rules and thematic play styles got ripped out in favor of "balanced" rules because "It cuased less arguments" but really it just made the game worse and a shadow of its former self. Its boring, its bland.
In a world of 32 flavors, 9th ed 40k is the ice cream scoop water.
7th was worse. No matter how bad you think the game is now, 7th was worse. 9th pre-nerf Harlequins were a joke compared to release 7th CWE.
The rest of that first screed only applies to Admech, Drukhari, Custodes, Tau, and Nids. Marines, SoB, Necrons, DA, DG, SW, BA, Tsons, GSC, GK, and BT were at or near the powerlevel of the rest of the field on release. The SoB book was actually a bit of a nerf on the 8th edition book.
People just remember The Admech to Nids route because it's recent and annoying. It's not really representative of the edition as a while.
As for the balance changes, you know guard players play tournaments too right? That Guard being garbage is ALSO bad? Why GW doesn't ever seem interested in fixing their worst factions is beyond me, but that doesn't make them 'not a problem' as far as tournaments go. It just makes them a problem GW chooses to ignore.
Alpha-striking is always going to be somewhat problematic with 40k's turn structure, but it's not particularly bad at the moment. Certainly not worse than the Skyhammer/Centurion Star days. Or even triple stormraven index.
...40k missions in past editions were almost entirely 'kill your opponent's models' with a 'turbo boost jetbikes onto points during turn 6' secondary. Eternal war was unplayable garbage until midway through 8th. The new missions might not be super inspired, but they're better than what they used to push out.
Those mechanics were stupid. They made the game worse. Challenges made sure you NEVER under ANY circumstances put upgrades on squad leaders(which seems pretty anti-40k to me), death and glory never happened because no one tank shocked and when they did tank shock, you just moved your models most of the time. Look out sir still happens, it just doesn't sacrifice your units for no good reason.
You seem to be confusing 'dramatic' with 'asinine'.
Saying those mechanics were stupid and made the game worse is nothing more then an opinion, a bad one at that.
So hard disagree on that, you seem to have a vision of what 40k should be that is inline with current ed, a tournybased game thats really just a board game thats warhammer themed.
What i want, is what warhammer 40k was, and what it should have remained, dramatic battles of the 41st melinia. Where armies were made for fluff not because this reddit netlist says its the best to use for them like current 40k is.
9th hands down is the more boring edition of this game to date, and this is why im glad we are seeing HH 2.0 taking up the mantle of what the games original spirit was. Its why i also push anyone who enjoyed that type of play to go to it as well.
So to the OP and anyone who feels the same, drop 9th ed like a sack of potatos, and just come play HH.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
This sadly sums it up.
Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'
It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
This sadly sums it up.
Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'
It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.
ERJAK wrote: Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'
It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.
'People who liked older editions of 40K probably like the original Age of Sigmar release' is certainly not a take I've seen before.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
This sadly sums it up.
Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'
It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.
ITT:
"4th edition is bad because of challenges, hull points, invisibility, the allies chart, and 22 pages of USRs"
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
This sadly sums it up.
Yeah nothing says a game about dramatic battles in the 41st Millennium than the IGOUGO turn structure LOL Take off the rose tinted glasses goddamn
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
This sadly sums it up.
Yeah nothing says a game about dramatic battles in the 41st Millennium than the IGOUGO turn structure LOL Take off the rose tinted glasses goddamn
IGOUGO is a totally seprate take on the topic, if you wanna discuss about whats better that would be suited for another thread because its key component of the game.
IGOUGO does not make or break a thematic system, there are better versions of player interaction, there are worse.
ERJAK wrote: Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'
It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.
'People who liked older editions of 40K probably like the original Age of Sigmar release' is certainly not a take I've seen before.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I hated how Sweeping Advance was done. WHFB has a similar thing, and my group all agreed to change it to auto hits for every model that catches up, with no retaliation. It still manages to be devastating, but it doesn't completely kill the enemy unit for losing one more guy than you.
Yeah I didn't like Sweeping Advance either. I found to it be a rather unfair mechanic, as there are entire armies that have low initiative, which means they will always get swept.
Its for a similar reason why I hated 8th ed magic in Fantasy, as there were several initiative test based spells in a game where plenty of units have low initiative values.
Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.
and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now
not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)
Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?
Morale was totally a thing up into 7th edition. Sure, there were ways to mitigate it buuut. . . That already means it's having an effect on your army construction and play. And "losing a turn" to morale was a hefty, but non lethal effect. Similarly, losing an entire squad to Sweeping Advance after failing a morale test in CC was devastating to several armies. All of these effects are good things for the game, as it helps diversify units without mereling resorting to Damage In/Out.
All of those effects you talked about amounted to damage in/damage out. Especially sweeping advance, which was one of the dumbest rules in the game in 7th (my 135pt Saint Celestine killed 1 Necron warrior out of your brick of 20, you fail moral, Celestine is I7 so she auto sweeps. You lose your entire brick of warriors with no resurrection protocols). Losing a turn to pinning or whatever was a death-sentence. Just about any unit became a free killpoint.
In terms of diversifying units, it did what current morale does. Diversifies 'does see play' from 'doesn't see play'.
Oh really? Did Necron Warriors not see tables in 7th because of Morale effects? Did Eldar and CSM not see tables because of Morale?
Losing a turn because of a failed Morale check is not Damage In/Out. It's effectively a suppression. Likewise pinning. Sweeping Advance resulting in a unit loss is damage, for sure, but it's an alternate route to get there in a way that gives different units different weaknesses, thus diversifying the available units in the game and also diversifying the tactics required to defeat them. All of which are good things.
Honestly sweeping advance rarely actually came into play in being over powered or under powered because of a lot of reasons
1. it was a lot harder to get into melee combat
2. you actually had to fail a moral check which was really hard to do considering the sheer amount of buffs to moral.
3. if you did some how fair, the unit that got swept was either already going to die, or was a throw away unit any way.
But as Insectum7 said, pretty much all of those things are good, it made for a more flavorful game
I do think the CC morale resolution mechanics needed tweaking. In 4th, modifiers were applied for outnumbering, but in 5th modifiers were applied for casualty amounts. I think combining the two would have been better. It did feel wrong to see a 20 bot unit of Necron Warriors get sweeped for losing 3 models to five Space Marines or whatever.
Insectum7 wrote: I do think the CC morale resolution mechanics needed tweaking. In 4th, modifiers were applied for outnumbering, but in 5th modifiers were applied for casualty amounts. I think combining the two would have been better. It did feel wrong to see a 20 bot unit of Necron Warriors get sweeped for losing 3 models to five Space Marines or whatever.
Honestly i think sweeping advance should just kill a given portion of the squad fleeing rather then outright wipe it.
In WHFB 6th, you get a +1 for outnumber, +1 per rank past the first for up to 3 additional ranks, a +1 for each wound caused or model killed, i forget which, a bonus of up to +5 for overkill from challenges, +2 from rear charges, +1 from flank charges, but the last two don't stack. You add up everything, then reduce the amount you win by from their Leadership, which they then need to roll for Fantasy Sweeping Advance. To port it over to 40k, you'd have to drop rear and flank charges, which is how WHFB handles Skirmish units, so we can just borrow that, and change the ranks to +1 for every five models in addition to the first five to a max of three.
So, 25 Orks in melee with 3 Custodes, assuming the orks kill one, and the custards kill 5, I don't know the real numbers, the Orks outnumber, have +3 from the amount of models past the first 5, did three wounds total, and have a total score of 7. The custards did 5, and don't have enough to qualify for the "Horde/Rank" bonus, so they lose the combat by 2, and now must make a leadership-2 test.
Alternatively, if the Custards had a leader in the unit that challenged the Nob and won, let's say Trajann or something, and he did like 5 wounds more than he had, the Custards would have an overkill bonus of +5, and now the Orks need to make a Leadership roll of -3 if everything else went down how it did.
Now, if Orks had the Skaven Leadership rules, they'd get a +1 to Leadership for every rank, so every 5 models after the first 5, so they'd be at a +3 here too. This would mean they make a base leadership test.
Insectum7 wrote: I do think the CC morale resolution mechanics needed tweaking. In 4th, modifiers were applied for outnumbering, but in 5th modifiers were applied for casualty amounts. I think combining the two would have been better. It did feel wrong to see a 20 bot unit of Necron Warriors get sweeped for losing 3 models to five Space Marines or whatever.
Honestly i think sweeping advance should just kill a given portion of the squad fleeing rather then outright wipe it.
Me and my friends made it so the sweeping unit gets auto hits equal to the attack characteristic of everyone who makes it back into combat. Granted, this was for Fantasy, so my Plague Monks got 3 attacks each, and my Stormvermin got 1 each, it also meant you charged in the next combat round, so you got to go first again regardless. Winning combat, even if less devastating, is still harsh.
JNAProductions wrote: Karol, how do you think the following should compare to a Tac Marine or an Intercessor, on a one-to-one, model-to-model basis?
Necron Warrior
Tyranid Warrior
Dire Avenger (or other aspects, if you like)
Ork Boy
Ork Nob
Overall inferior across the board with the possible exception of Tyranid Warriors and the Dire Avenger (who is still inferior in some ways, like durability and strength, while being quicker). Aspect Warriors should be better than base Marines at whatever their specialty is, so howling banshees are more lethal in melee.
JNAProductions wrote: Karol, how do you think the following should compare to a Tac Marine or an Intercessor, on a one-to-one, model-to-model basis?
Necron Warrior
Tyranid Warrior
Dire Avenger (or other aspects, if you like)
Ork Boy
Ork Nob
Overall inferior across the board with the possible exception of Tyranid Warriors and the Dire Avenger (who is still inferior in some ways, like durability and strength, while being quicker). Aspect Warriors should be better than base Marines at whatever their specialty is, so howling banshees are more lethal in melee.
So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.
Im not sure what game you are playing but i dont think its current 40k. Becuase the balance of 40k is currently hands down, with out question the WORST its ever been.
Internal balance is hands down the best it's ever been.
External balance is usual stuff but only if you consider a specific moment of the edition, as due to frequent changes/nerfs/updates it's certainly much better than it always has been. No time to chase the flavour of the month for the vast majority of players now since it's not going to last long enough.
But I guess if you play AM or chaos you might see things differently.
So to the OP and anyone who feels the same, drop 9th ed like a sack of potatos, and just come play HH.
HH is for power armour fanboys though, which someone might not be. I know I'm not, never been a fan of SM and can't stand anything chaos. I like 10 factions in 40k and only one of them (SW) is present in HH, but lacking all my favorite units which are also the faction's most flavourful ones though.
Kind of feel this "where do you see Tactical Marines" is just a function of when you joined the hobby.
Back in the day I'd have said a marine, necron warrior, Aspect Warrior and Nob should have all been +/- a point of each other, with those points going towards different things. A Boy would be cheaper (and worse) than those - much closer to a Guardian or Guardsman in power (but again, those points buying different things - i.e. toughness 4). A Tyranid Warrior would be a bit more (but really always had a sort of unclear position in terms of power & rules and generally weren't great as a result).
But... that was then and this is now. I don't really have a problem with Marines being much "bigger" in the game - to frankly reflect their place in the fluff as most bolter addicts seem to want. I think its reasonable that 10 Marines on the table should represent something a lot more significant/chunky than say 10 necron warriors, who have been progressively downranked in terms of 40k's food chain.
But in game you don't work with models in isolation - you work with points. "100 points of Marines" can be represented by 5 models or 10. That doesn't really matter. The point is that they can't for those 100 points get the most resilience of every faction - while simultaneously also being the fastest, the shootiest and the punchiest.
FWIW In terms of Eldar I feel DA have always sort of been "Guardians+" and the cheapest Aspect Warriors - so while I kind of feel they should have remained troops, I don't think they are necesarilly the bar given Marine ascension. For example I don't think Striking Scorpions and say Assault Intercessors are too far apart. The Intercessors have T4 and 2 wounds - but the Scorpions have tricks. Now maybe you could say that's not the bar, Assault Intercessors should be compared with Storm Guardians, while Scorpions are Compared with Bladeguard or something - but meh. Wraithguard are there if you want them.
Plenty of alternative morale systems out there. I think the problem with most is the GW design philosophy of not having to mark/remember stuff (so reloading weapons, unit states etc.) from turn to turn.
Spoiler:
My favourite morale solution currently is to have a staged system. Something like this.
Fail a test and you can't shoot, charge or use psychic powers.
Fail a second and you can't move and any units in engagement range of the enemy auto die.
Fail a third test and unit removed.
Leadership a target number like other stats, so always pass on 6, fail on 1.
Mods
Taken casualties this turn -1
At or below Half Strength -1
Reached half strength this turn -1
Must test in end phase if taken casualties.
May test in end phase if wish to rally (but failure makes unit more broken as detailed above)
The main modifiers for that would be fearless, ATSKNF and synapse.
Fearless - Ignore casualty modifier
And They Shall Know No Fear - Re-roll
Synapse (x) - a Synapse unit can make itself or another unit on the table fearless for this test, up to X times this turn
Im not sure what game you are playing but i dont think its current 40k. Becuase the balance of 40k is currently hands down, with out question the WORST its ever been.
Internal balance is hands down the best it's ever been.
External balance is usual stuff but only if you consider a specific moment of the edition, as due to frequent changes/nerfs/updates it's certainly much better than it always has been. No time to chase the flavour of the month for the vast majority of players now since it's not going to last long enough.
But I guess if you play AM or chaos you might see things differently.
So to the OP and anyone who feels the same, drop 9th ed like a sack of potatos, and just come play HH.
HH is for power armour fanboys though, which someone might not be. I know I'm not, never been a fan of SM and can't stand anything chaos. I like 10 factions in 40k and only one of them (SW) is present in HH, but lacking all my favorite units which are also the faction's most flavourful ones though.
HH is for anyone who wants a better balanced game, and thematic battles, there are options to not play marines, custodes, mechanicum, guard, knights, and even daemons. The only thing not offered in there are xeno races.
Which truth be told, i would not be against adding orks and eldar considering they fought those all the time in the HH.
Kind of feel this "where do you see Tactical Marines" is just a function of when you joined the hobby.
Back in the day I'd have said a marine, necron warrior, Aspect Warrior and Nob should have all been +/- a point of each other, with those points going towards different things. A Boy would be cheaper (and worse) than those - much closer to a Guardian or Guardsman in power (but again, those points buying different things - i.e. toughness 4). A Tyranid Warrior would be a bit more (but really always had a sort of unclear position in terms of power & rules and generally weren't great as a result).
But... that was then and this is now. I don't really have a problem with Marines being much "bigger" in the game - to frankly reflect their place in the fluff as most bolter addicts seem to want. I think its reasonable that 10 Marines on the table should represent something a lot more significant/chunky than say 10 necron warriors, who have been progressively downranked in terms of 40k's food chain.
But in game you don't work with models in isolation - you work with points. "100 points of Marines" can be represented by 5 models or 10. That doesn't really matter. The point is that they can't for those 100 points get the most resilience of every faction - while simultaneously also being the fastest, the shootiest and the punchiest.
FWIW In terms of Eldar I feel DA have always sort of been "Guardians+" and the cheapest Aspect Warriors - so while I kind of feel they should have remained troops, I don't think they are necesarilly the bar given Marine ascension. For example I don't think Striking Scorpions and say Assault Intercessors are too far apart. The Intercessors have T4 and 2 wounds - but the Scorpions have tricks. Now maybe you could say that's not the bar, Assault Intercessors should be compared with Storm Guardians, while Scorpions are Compared with Bladeguard or something - but meh. Wraithguard are there if you want them.
"Blah blah blah Space Marines uber alles". . .
God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.
There is another coin to the morale piece - not involving "not having to track extra stuff". The GW systems have always included morale or battle shock in some form or fashion.
There's also the part that people in the general audience find it a negative play experience when their guys are removed from the table because they chose to run.
That particular piece I remember vividly from a Games Day back in either 2009 or 2010 when that question came up about how leadership did not mean as much anymore (and this was again back in 2009 or 2010 so this conversation has been around for some time) and Phil Kelly mentioned the above - that people just didn't enjoy when their dudesmen were just removed from the table because they failed a morale roll or whatever and Alan Bligh was there nearby at the Horus Heresy reveal and said something about the inquisition would track you down if you ran and "pkow" lol.
I know that is particularly true in any gamey-game I've been involved in that involves war - morale is not something that really gets a lot of love because its not as fun and isn't what you'd see as much in movies (quote and unquote from I have been told by producers).
Military sims on the other hand do use morale quite a bit because in war you often seek to destroy your enemy's will to fight, but in gamey games thats not terribly cinematic.
I think it was the Psychology and Break Test sections that first hooked me into fantasy battle as a game back in the 4th edition. That sort of thing made it more than just a game, it is tough to explain
Dai wrote: I think it was the Psychology and Break Test sections that first hooked me into fantasy battle as a game back in the 4th edition. That sort of thing made it more than just a game, it is tough to explain
For sure. Me as well. Getting your opponent's army to run away and watch them roll off from a good flank hit and spreading that good old panic.
Backspacehacker wrote: Personally im not a fan of how it works now. I hate that i can loose more models to moral checks then i do from getting shot at.
Dai wrote: I think it was the Psychology and Break Test sections that first hooked me into fantasy battle as a game back in the 4th edition. That sort of thing made it more than just a game, it is tough to explain
For sure. Me as well. Getting your opponent's army to run away and watch them roll off from a good flank hit and spreading that good old panic.
It was fun. At times it was not fair given the units available to certain armies and often resulted in focusing on small fast units rather than large blocks unless you had stubborn, steadfast, or unbreakable.
Insectum7 wrote: I think this has been elaborated upon numerous times by now, and if you haven't gotten it yet you probably won't get it with another elaboration.
Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
It was fun. At times it was not fair given the units available to certain armies and often resulted in focusing on small fast units rather than large blocks unless you had stubborn, steadfast, or unbreakable.
I'm often told on these boards fair is subjective. There are a lot to GW games that are grotesquely out of balance with fair though but yeah every edition has things that are wtf moments.
For my money though the morale of the past are part of what hooked me into their games.
I have now discovered the joy of GM'd games where people cannot cherry pick their forces and it has opened up a whole new world for me. I was even considering a small 40k army again under the circumstances that it be scenario heavy and GM driven and not tournament cherry picking. Its brought a level of enthusiasm back to me that I have lost for years.
It was fun. At times it was not fair given the units available to certain armies and often resulted in focusing on small fast units rather than large blocks unless you had stubborn, steadfast, or unbreakable.
I'm often told on these boards fair is subjective. There are a lot to GW games that are grotesquely out of balance with fair though but yeah every edition has things that are wtf moments.
For my money though the morale of the past are part of what hooked me into their games.
I have now discovered the joy of GM'd games where people cannot cherry pick their forces and it has opened up a whole new world for me. I was even considering a small 40k army again under the circumstances that it be scenario heavy and GM driven and not tournament cherry picking. Its brought a level of enthusiasm back to me that I have lost for years.
Racerguy180 wrote:So you wanna play RT?
It's not exclusive to rt...
We play most of our wargames like this auticus. Rt might have spelled it out to play like that, as racerguy says, but any game can be played like this - especially in the historical sphere; this is still fairly normal. The guys I play with came from that background and we've taken it to pretty much everything we play.
Insectum7 wrote: I think this has been elaborated upon numerous times by now, and if you haven't gotten it yet you probably won't get it with another elaboration.
Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
Sure i'll elaborate.
From 3rd to 7th 40k was a better system to play out the original spirit of the game, which was, to re-enact, and depict thematic and dramatic battles of the 41st millennia on the table top. This was doable because of a wide range of unit customization, rules, abilities, and powers, which allowed the player to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be or a theme to it. A player in past editions would have the ability to make very thematic and fluffy armies and they would still work.
The game also had systems that better represented the interactions of weapons and units on the battlegrounds, things like templates and blast markers representing explosions, higher skilled melee units able to cut down untrained melee units with much more ease rather hten you just hit on a 3+ no matter what.
You also had things like armor facings, which empisised the idea that tanks are weak in the rear, this like LoS being needed for weapons that were on one side on the vehicles.
Psyker powers were also far more dynamic and unique not just 12 different ways to say you do d3 mortal wounds.
On top of that you had a lot more thematic rules like challenges, death and glory, tank shocks, pinning and fear tests that meant more ect ect. Battles flowed far more dramatically and were much more engaging.
These are just some of the example of what i mean when i say 40k used to be about thematic battles, it had more complicated rules and more in depth rules that really were not difficult to remember or follow. The constant complaining about USR was one that never really was an issue save for places like dakka who liked to complain about having to remember things.
8th and 9th ed stripped out these in depth rules in favor of more streamlined content. Units that were once designed to be brutal melee strikers that had very few units that could stand up to them in melee now have just boring hits on 2+. Removal of initive in favor of "Well we just all attack at once now." The general dumbing down of rules and psyker powers, the removal of thematic elements like templates and facings in favor of "faster" mechanics, and the false guise of "It removed arguments"
On top of that, many of the armies lack real balance because the current system is designed to be reactive to the tournament scene, with balance sheets directly caused by tournaments.
The changing of the wounding system, hit system, and AP system all have reduced the verity of weapons making them all feel bland and boring and in some cases, guard, making their entire army extremely weak.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table, because all of those thematic interactions have been removed. Modern 40k games are more or less you are just there for the ride. The average 40k player is playing your typical ITC table, terrain, and rules. Every singe game in major cities or local shops are just all games to prepare for the next tournament.
My city, a city of 300k, with 5 shops, all are the same thing, boring tournament prep games, no flavor, no soul, just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes.
Modern 40k is just the most souless board game in comparison to the systems of the past, HH 2.0 seems to even validate that this is something that a large portion of the gaming population crave as well with HH 2.0 rules maintaining far more of the thematic interactions along with more back and forht interactions via the reaction system, allowing for a more dynamic and non predictable outcome.
Thats my elaboration on what i mean when i say.
"40k went from a game wehere you played out dramatic battles of the 4st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed."
Insectum7 wrote: I think this has been elaborated upon numerous times by now, and if you haven't gotten it yet you probably won't get it with another elaboration.
Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
Sure i'll elaborate.
From 3rd to 7th 40k was a better system to play out the original spirit of the game, which was, to re-enact, and depict thematic and dramatic battles of the 41st millennia on the table top. This was doable because of a wide range of unit customization, rules, abilities, and powers, which allowed the player to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be or a theme to it. A player in past editions would have the ability to make very thematic and fluffy armies and they would still work.
The game also had systems that better represented the interactions of weapons and units on the battlegrounds, things like templates and blast markers representing explosions, higher skilled melee units able to cut down untrained melee units with much more ease rather hten you just hit on a 3+ no matter what.
You also had things like armor facings, which empisised the idea that tanks are weak in the rear, this like LoS being needed for weapons that were on one side on the vehicles.
Psyker powers were also far more dynamic and unique not just 12 different ways to say you do d3 mortal wounds.
On top of that you had a lot more thematic rules like challenges, death and glory, tank shocks, pinning and fear tests that meant more ect ect. Battles flowed far more dramatically and were much more engaging.
These are just some of the example of what i mean when i say 40k used to be about thematic battles, it had more complicated rules and more in depth rules that really were not difficult to remember or follow. The constant complaining about USR was one that never really was an issue save for places like dakka who liked to complain about having to remember things.
8th and 9th ed stripped out these in depth rules in favor of more streamlined content. Units that were once designed to be brutal melee strikers that had very few units that could stand up to them in melee now have just boring hits on 2+. Removal of initive in favor of "Well we just all attack at once now." The general dumbing down of rules and psyker powers, the removal of thematic elements like templates and facings in favor of "faster" mechanics, and the false guise of "It removed arguments"
On top of that, many of the armies lack real balance because the current system is designed to be reactive to the tournament scene, with balance sheets directly caused by tournaments.
The changing of the wounding system, hit system, and AP system all have reduced the verity of weapons making them all feel bland and boring and in some cases, guard, making their entire army extremely weak.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table, because all of those thematic interactions have been removed. Modern 40k games are more or less you are just there for the ride. The average 40k player is playing your typical ITC table, terrain, and rules. Every singe game in major cities or local shops are just all games to prepare for the next tournament.
My city, a city of 300k, with 5 shops, all are the same thing, boring tournament prep games, no flavor, no soul, just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes.
Modern 40k is just the most souless board game in comparison to the systems of the past, HH 2.0 seems to even validate that this is something that a large portion of the gaming population crave as well with HH 2.0 rules maintaining far more of the thematic interactions along with more back and forht interactions via the reaction system, allowing for a more dynamic and non predictable outcome.
Thats my elaboration on what i mean when i say.
"40k went from a game wehere you played out dramatic battles of the 4st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed."
You put it much better than I would have. I didn't play 3-7th so I can't really speak on the game from that time frame.
Insectum7 wrote: I think this has been elaborated upon numerous times by now, and if you haven't gotten it yet you probably won't get it with another elaboration.
Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
Sure i'll elaborate.
From 3rd to 7th 40k was a better system to play out the original spirit of the game, which was, to re-enact, and depict thematic and dramatic battles of the 41st millennia on the table top. This was doable because of a wide range of unit customization, rules, abilities, and powers, which allowed the player to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be or a theme to it. A player in past editions would have the ability to make very thematic and fluffy armies and they would still work.
The game also had systems that better represented the interactions of weapons and units on the battlegrounds, things like templates and blast markers representing explosions, higher skilled melee units able to cut down untrained melee units with much more ease rather hten you just hit on a 3+ no matter what.
You also had things like armor facings, which empisised the idea that tanks are weak in the rear, this like LoS being needed for weapons that were on one side on the vehicles.
Psyker powers were also far more dynamic and unique not just 12 different ways to say you do d3 mortal wounds.
On top of that you had a lot more thematic rules like challenges, death and glory, tank shocks, pinning and fear tests that meant more ect ect. Battles flowed far more dramatically and were much more engaging.
These are just some of the example of what i mean when i say 40k used to be about thematic battles, it had more complicated rules and more in depth rules that really were not difficult to remember or follow. The constant complaining about USR was one that never really was an issue save for places like dakka who liked to complain about having to remember things.
This is all subjective though. "Better" is a subjective term. IMHO the system is much better now for example. So is balance. You simply preferred the old game (and I suspect how your army/armies performed) and it's totally fine of course, but that's it. In no way it was objectively more immersive, "closer to the original spirit of the game", let alone "better".
As for immersion or themed armies... why do you think that only vehicles (and not even all of them) should be weaker in the rare? Backstabbing has always been a thing in D&D for example, in WHFB units got bonuses when charging the flank or rare of their targets. Also, don't you like the fact that now there are subfaction specific rules? For example you couldn't play Evil Sunz or Goffs in the past, just Orks.
The blast, facings, fire arcs, vehicle's damage table, kill points missions, no fight first for chargers, hits in combat only possible on 3s, 4s or 5s despite 10 possible values of WS, all or nothing saves, etc... are all mechanics that kinda used to break my immersion, never liked any of those and I'm glad they've gone. WHFB actually already made some of those mechanics pretty obsolete and I never understood why 40k kept using the all or nothing saves, the fighting based only on initiative, the KP mission instead of actual points of killed stuff, etc... for a really long time after they were introduced in the fantasy game.
Also, while it's true that some options are gone, now most of the factions have way more units to choose from. The 3rd edition ork codex had like a third or half of the current roster, and losing a few combinations on some HQs was widely compensated.
Of course it is subjective, i never suggest its not, i explicitly say its better because the old systems had more thematic, the newer system sucks for thematic and the original spirit of the game.
Modern 40k is better, if you want a tournament game that lacks soul and thematic interactions.
If you want more ture to the original intent of 40k, then older editions are better.
There is no debate that modern 40k is a stripped down set of rules form past editions, thats just a fact, it was even one of GWs selling points. With the reduction of those rules, it removed intricacy of them.
Many people got into 40k for it being a wargame, and being more inline with the original intent of a wargame. Which quick history lesson, wargames were pushed hard in the UK as officer training tools.
Modern 40k removed many of these more intricate systems and made the game more bland because of it.
Backspacehacker wrote: Personally im not a fan of how it works now. I hate that i can loose more models to moral checks then i do from getting shot at.
That's incredibly improbable.
Normal in most historical wargames and real life.
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Backspacehacker wrote: The average 40k player is playing your typical ITC table, terrain, and rules. Every singe game in major cities or local shops are just all games to prepare for the next tournament.
Not many netlists but tourney play dominates the 40k club games in my local.
Backspacehacker wrote: Of course it is subjective, i never suggest its not, i explicitly say its better because the old systems had more thematic, the newer system sucks for thematic and the original spirit of the game.
Modern 40k is better, if you want a tournament game that lacks soul and thematic interactions.
If you want more ture to the original intent of 40k, then older editions are better.
Yeah 40k felt really thematic when I lost 90% of my 5th/6th Ed games with my Orks because I wasn't running the one netlist that could win in a casual environment. Felt real thematic that my Deathskulls with all their Meks, Lootas and Looted Wagons got bodied every single game by someone who would just spam the best units in their Codex. People had a great time when all the Craftworlds players at our local decided to play thematic Iyanden armies and drop loads of tough elite units equipped with some of the hardest-hitting weapons in the game as troops.
Past editions of 40k were just as unbalanced and broken as the recent ones, the only difference is that Twitter, Facebook, and forums are a lot more widely used by people to complain about it.
I know where you're coming from, and I miss some of those old features of the game you mention- tank shocks and fear checks, etc.
But I have difficulty with the notion that 9th is less thematic than previous versions. I think this may be connected to the armies I play. If you're a sisters player, it's very difficult to argue that previous versions of the game allowed you to build as thematic an army as you can currently build.
I find that for any faction that didn't have unique rules for their subfactions in previous iterations, 9th has a greater likelihood of fulfilling that thematic army. If you've always played space marines, sure, every edition has allowed your dudes to be your dudes.
Other factions also had good treatment in some editions... Just not in every edition.
In 9th, there has also been a shift in what it means to be thematic and customized; in days gone by, that feeling of "my dudes" was supplied almost entirely by load-out options. Now, however, some individuality may be provided bit by load out, but it also includes bespoke strats for specific subfactions and/ or units, by interactions with a specific character unit who was designed to work with the units in question, subfaction rules, etc. These things don't feel the same to people as load-out options did, because load-out options are visible on the model, but these other things aren't.
Another factor that influences my perception of customization is the fact that I'm a Crusade player, so each of my units has battle honour and scar slots for customization IN ADDITION to all the other customization options provided by the game.
I think that it is fair to say that regardless of which army you play, equipment customization in 9th is the worst it's ever been.
But I also think it's fair to say that if you play Crusade, regardless of which army you play, overall customization (ie. not just equipment) is better than it's ever been.
Backspacehacker wrote: Of course it is subjective, i never suggest its not, i explicitly say its better because the old systems had more thematic, the newer system sucks for thematic and the original spirit of the game.
Modern 40k is better, if you want a tournament game that lacks soul and thematic interactions.
If you want more ture to the original intent of 40k, then older editions are better.
Yeah 40k felt really thematic when I lost 90% of my 5th/6th Ed games with my Orks because I wasn't running the one netlist that could win in a casual environment. Felt real thematic that my Deathskulls with all their Meks, Lootas and Looted Wagons got bodied every single game by someone who would just spam the best units in their Codex. People had a great time when all the Craftworlds players at our local decided to play thematic Iyanden armies and drop loads of tough elite units equipped with some of the hardest-hitting weapons in the game as troops.
Past editions of 40k were just as unbalanced and broken as the recent ones, the only difference is that Twitter, Facebook, and forums are a lot more widely used by people to complain about it.
"More thematic" has little to do with "more balanced" from a strictly results driven standpoint. Thus the disconnect between tourney winrate and "thematic". The prior system could have been balanced better and remain "thematic". Heck, the current system could be better balanced yet still be thematic, but GW isn't really doing so, instead appearing to make balancing choices which hurt "themeatic".
Also, while it's true that some options are gone, now most of the factions have way more units to choose from. The 3rd edition ork codex had like a third or half of the current roster, and losing a few combinations on some HQs was widely compensated.
Options existing in a codex means little. If they are so bad, no one runs them, or that they can't be put in to any existing good build, then they may as well not exist. Marines are a great example of that. If tomorrow someone removed almost everything out of the codex, bar blades, v.vets, mounted characters, and the obligatory troops and dreads, most people wouldn't notice all the options being gone. Other books are the same, that is why w40k is such a risky thing for new players, there is a ton of kits who just make trap options.
Also, while it's true that some options are gone, now most of the factions have way more units to choose from. The 3rd edition ork codex had like a third or half of the current roster, and losing a few combinations on some HQs was widely compensated.
Options existing in a codex means little. If they are so bad, no one runs them, or that they can't be put in to any existing good build, then they may as well not exist. Marines are a great example of that. If tomorrow someone removed almost everything out of the codex, bar blades, v.vets, mounted characters, and the obligatory troops and dreads, most people wouldn't notice all the options being gone. Other books are the same, that is why w40k is such a risky thing for new players, there is a ton of kits who just make trap options.
Dark reapers are another great example of this as well.
Exaulted sorcerers for tsons.
Predators, or really any T7 vehicle in the marine codex
Insectum7 wrote: "More thematic" has little to do with "more balanced" from a strictly results driven standpoint. Thus the disconnect between tourney winrate and "thematic". The prior system could have been balanced better and remain "thematic". Heck, the current system could be better balanced yet still be thematic, but GW isn't really doing so, instead appearing to make balancing choices which hurt "themeatic".
Backspacehacker made the point that modern 40k is soulless and not thematic whereas older editions were thematic. I pointed out that it was exactly the same in the past and gave examples. I don't see how theme and balance can't be intertwined when one person can play a thematic army and get pounded into the dirt, yet another can do the same and win every game they play.
Are the Drukhari or Custodes lists winning tournaments not thematic to their respective backgrounds?
Backspacehacker wrote: Of course it is subjective, i never suggest its not, i explicitly say its better because the old systems had more thematic, the newer system sucks for thematic and the original spirit of the game.
Modern 40k is better, if you want a tournament game that lacks soul and thematic interactions.
If you want more ture to the original intent of 40k, then older editions are better.
Yeah 40k felt really thematic when I lost 90% of my 5th/6th Ed games with my Orks because I wasn't running the one netlist that could win in a casual environment. Felt real thematic that my Deathskulls with all their Meks, Lootas and Looted Wagons got bodied every single game by someone who would just spam the best units in their Codex. People had a great time when all the Craftworlds players at our local decided to play thematic Iyanden armies and drop loads of tough elite units equipped with some of the hardest-hitting weapons in the game as troops.
Past editions of 40k were just as unbalanced and broken as the recent ones, the only difference is that Twitter, Facebook, and forums are a lot more widely used by people to complain about it.
What are you on with? Lootas were one of the best units for Orks in 5th ed... Pull the other one.
Insectum7 wrote: I think this has been elaborated upon numerous times by now, and if you haven't gotten it yet you probably won't get it with another elaboration.
Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
Sure i'll elaborate.
From 3rd to 7th 40k was a better system to play out the original spirit of the game, which was, to re-enact, and depict thematic and dramatic battles of the 41st millennia on the table top. This was doable because of a wide range of unit customization, rules, abilities, and powers, which allowed the player to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be or a theme to it. A player in past editions would have the ability to make very thematic and fluffy armies and they would still work.
The game also had systems that better represented the interactions of weapons and units on the battlegrounds, things like templates and blast markers representing explosions, higher skilled melee units able to cut down untrained melee units with much more ease rather hten you just hit on a 3+ no matter what.
You also had things like armor facings, which empisised the idea that tanks are weak in the rear, this like LoS being needed for weapons that were on one side on the vehicles.
Psyker powers were also far more dynamic and unique not just 12 different ways to say you do d3 mortal wounds.
On top of that you had a lot more thematic rules like challenges, death and glory, tank shocks, pinning and fear tests that meant more ect ect. Battles flowed far more dramatically and were much more engaging.
These are just some of the example of what i mean when i say 40k used to be about thematic battles, it had more complicated rules and more in depth rules that really were not difficult to remember or follow. The constant complaining about USR was one that never really was an issue save for places like dakka who liked to complain about having to remember things.
8th and 9th ed stripped out these in depth rules in favor of more streamlined content. Units that were once designed to be brutal melee strikers that had very few units that could stand up to them in melee now have just boring hits on 2+. Removal of initive in favor of "Well we just all attack at once now." The general dumbing down of rules and psyker powers, the removal of thematic elements like templates and facings in favor of "faster" mechanics, and the false guise of "It removed arguments"
On top of that, many of the armies lack real balance because the current system is designed to be reactive to the tournament scene, with balance sheets directly caused by tournaments.
The changing of the wounding system, hit system, and AP system all have reduced the verity of weapons making them all feel bland and boring and in some cases, guard, making their entire army extremely weak.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table, because all of those thematic interactions have been removed. Modern 40k games are more or less you are just there for the ride. The average 40k player is playing your typical ITC table, terrain, and rules. Every singe game in major cities or local shops are just all games to prepare for the next tournament.
My city, a city of 300k, with 5 shops, all are the same thing, boring tournament prep games, no flavor, no soul, just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes.
Modern 40k is just the most souless board game in comparison to the systems of the past, HH 2.0 seems to even validate that this is something that a large portion of the gaming population crave as well with HH 2.0 rules maintaining far more of the thematic interactions along with more back and forht interactions via the reaction system, allowing for a more dynamic and non predictable outcome.
Thats my elaboration on what i mean when i say.
"40k went from a game wehere you played out dramatic battles of the 4st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed."
I appreciate you taking the time to write that out.
If I were to summarize:
1 - customization to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be
2 - systems that better represented the interactions ( melee specialists )
3 - armor facings & templates
4 - psychic powers not being just mortal wounds
1 - Customization like characters taking weapons? Aside from that the customization hasn't worsened. It got deeper. If I wanted to play Thousand Sons I took Ahriman and Rubrics as troops. Now I can take exalted that is deceitful or direct. I can make an army that jumps around the board or one that puts everything into punishing with spells or one that aims to be the most steadfast automatons out there. I can have a deeply prophetic sorcerer that can foresee combat and deftly avoid or if caught can slip in and out at will riding an exceptional disk of tzeentch.
There isn't anything I am missing about customization from old editions. In fact the options now are so far beyond better that I genuinely struggle to identify with this concern.
2 - I'm not sure why your barometer for something being good at melee is it hitting on 3s while the opponent hits on 5s. There are absolutely clear melee specialists in the game and they're not typically something you counter with basic melee unless they're a glass cannon. This feels more like you enjoyed being WS5+ and punching down by clearing all the models that were in combat with you before they got to strike.
3 - I fail to see how this is "Warhammer" than simply a preference for wargame mechanics.
4 - For much of 40K there wasn't even a psychic phase. In CSM 3.5 my spell options were -- corsucating flame, bolt of change, and twisting path -- two of which are basically "witchfire" spells. On the minor spells I had reroll witchfire, reroll hits, -1 LD to a psyker, strategy rating 3 ( not really a spell ), caster can't be charged without LD test.
7th wasn't much better with some disciplines almost entirely dedicated to witchfire spells, but there was utility. Too bad no one used anything except invisibility and shroud.
Now I have : a targeted reroll, fallback and shoot/charge, revive a model, mortal wounds, debuff move and advance, reroll wounds, warp units, debuff LD and A, -2 to psychic tests, mortal wounds, -1 to hit, mortal wounds, heal, invulnerable, mortal wounds, debuff S, buff S to a unit, prevent a unit from shooting outside 24", mortal wounds, strip invulns, mortal wounds, +1 to hit, buff S and A to a model, move twice, increase range, kill model, mortal wounds based on target unit's actions.
My warlord can redeploy models, move after overwatch, grant obsec, block rerolls against them, and so on.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table
For the 90% of factions this is unequivocally untrue and then it is also untrue for the top books when they have to face something on equal standing.
just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
All of this just seems like the old rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. Fear and Terror were neat, but just about everyone and their uncle found ways to avoid it when GW obliged with rules updates. There's never been more "Warhammer" in the system than there has been since 9th edition. Nids might be overpowered, but it is undeniable that their codex expertly encompasses the concept of their army as do the other 9th edition codexes.
There is no debate that modern 40k is a stripped down set of rules form past editions, thats just a fact, it was even one of GWs selling points.
It's also a fact that with wider rosters and dedicated subfactions' stuff (chapter traits, warlord traits, dedicated stratagems, dedicated relics) we know have way more possible combinations of options than any 3rd-7th codex had. Losing bikes or jet packs for a handful of characters isn't a big deal, really. The sheer number of available options is now so massive that one of the biggest complains from players is that they can't memorize everything from every faction, while they used to do it in previous editions.
Which is a huge point in favor for customized and thematic armies.
Insectum7 wrote: "More thematic" has little to do with "more balanced" from a strictly results driven standpoint. Thus the disconnect between tourney winrate and "thematic". The prior system could have been balanced better and remain "thematic". Heck, the current system could be better balanced yet still be thematic, but GW isn't really doing so, instead appearing to make balancing choices which hurt "themeatic".
Backspacehacker made the point that modern 40k is soulless and not thematic whereas older editions were thematic. I pointed out that it was exactly the same in the past and gave examples. I don't see how theme and balance can't be intertwined when one person can play a thematic army and get pounded into the dirt, yet another can do the same and win every game they play.
Are the Drukhari or Custodes lists winning tournaments not thematic to their respective backgrounds?
Exactly, and I actually think that 40k has never been so thematic than it currently is.
Also, while it's true that some options are gone, now most of the factions have way more units to choose from. The 3rd edition ork codex had like a third or half of the current roster, and losing a few combinations on some HQs was widely compensated.
Options existing in a codex means little. If they are so bad, no one runs them, or that they can't be put in to any existing good build, then they may as well not exist. Marines are a great example of that. If tomorrow someone removed almost everything out of the codex, bar blades, v.vets, mounted characters, and the obligatory troops and dreads, most people wouldn't notice all the options being gone. Other books are the same, that is why w40k is such a risky thing for new players, there is a ton of kits who just make trap options.
Which is no different than missing tons of options for your characters from older editions when just a handful of them was actually worthy of consideration.
Insectum7 wrote: "More thematic" has little to do with "more balanced" from a strictly results driven standpoint. Thus the disconnect between tourney winrate and "thematic". The prior system could have been balanced better and remain "thematic". Heck, the current system could be better balanced yet still be thematic, but GW isn't really doing so, instead appearing to make balancing choices which hurt "themeatic".
Backspacehacker made the point that modern 40k is soulless and not thematic whereas older editions were thematic. I pointed out that it was exactly the same in the past and gave examples. I don't see how theme and balance can't be intertwined when one person can play a thematic army and get pounded into the dirt, yet another can do the same and win every game they play.
Are the Drukhari or Custodes lists winning tournaments not thematic to their respective backgrounds?
Then you didn't undersrand my post.
There are numerous types of balance, and different metrics for each. Tourney win rate is an overall pretty lousy one in regards to "theme". For example, T3, 1W, Marines with Bolters at S2 12" range might be able to gain a 50% win rate in tournaments if they cost 5ppm. But it would be achieving a balance that is wildly off theme.
Lasguns autowounding Titans on 6s might help win rates. It's just a lousy way to achieve it. AoC might help Marines gain a few more % in tournies, but it further gaks on xenos infantry in an off theme way. GW has shown that it cares about balance, and has implemented mechanisms to achieve it, both of which are laudible. It just does so in a way that feels off theme. The emphasis is on the tourney result, and at the expense of theme/verisimilitude.
My only thing about customization is that it feel like there's no restrictions when I'm building my army, so customizing doesn't feel quite the same as when I go to WHFB 6th, which is my only other point of reference, and I can have units go from Special to Core, like my Skaven Warplock Jezzails for Clan Skryre, or Plague Monks, which also replace Clanrats for the core of the army, for Clan Pestilens. Because there's restrictions, such small changes make it feel like a big change, now that I can bring more Plague Monks, but am heavily limited on Weapon Teams and Warplock Jezzails.
In the same edition, Daemons and Chaos Warriors were the same codex, but were Core or Special units, depending on who your Lieutenant was, so the customization happened mostly with what you wanted your lieutenant to be and their gear, and they had a ridiculous amount of customization for that, included marks and god exclusive gear. In addition, most mortal units could take marks, and Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights could be upgraded to Chosen. Throw in a few of your favorite deamons, and while not the most customizable part of your force, were nice to include.
The issue is big differences in how these two systems handle Troops/Core, in that a good chunk of non troop units would be considered core, but old 40k had a FoC, though I'm not sure how good. I will eventually get around to playing 3rd edition.
Also, Vampires are an army that has almost no customization for the forces, and only for Heroes and Lords, where Vampire Lords and Counts are extremely customizable, and Necromancers, Wight Lords, and Wraiths were somewhat. But you generally filled out the full roster of heroes and lords as Vampires, as zombies and skeletons were replaceable and summonable.
And, I know you could take other subfactions as Vampires, but I feel Sylvania and Necromancers were the only ones that really stood out to me, as your Vampire Lord already decided your armies theme. Getting a Sylvania army added extra units to pick from and some cool abilities, and Necromancers getting cheaper units to start with, but no access to non undead units, and no Vampires was interesting too.
Overall, I like restrictions, because they define my choices, more than I like absolute freedom. Once you add subfactions which can break certain restrictions, but lose out on other things, it feels more impactful than "Enemies get a -1 to hit when you're more than 12" away" and a relic and single stratagem.
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.
And honestly the rest of the post sorta shows why it's fruitless to bother engaging. Like this is insanity:
"There isn't anything I am missing about customization from old editions. In fact the options now are so far beyond better that I genuinely struggle to identify with this concern."
Insectum7 wrote: I think this has been elaborated upon numerous times by now, and if you haven't gotten it yet you probably won't get it with another elaboration.
Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
Sure i'll elaborate.
From 3rd to 7th 40k was a better system to play out the original spirit of the game, which was, to re-enact, and depict thematic and dramatic battles of the 41st millennia on the table top. This was doable because of a wide range of unit customization, rules, abilities, and powers, which allowed the player to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be or a theme to it. A player in past editions would have the ability to make very thematic and fluffy armies and they would still work.
The game also had systems that better represented the interactions of weapons and units on the battlegrounds, things like templates and blast markers representing explosions, higher skilled melee units able to cut down untrained melee units with much more ease rather hten you just hit on a 3+ no matter what.
You also had things like armor facings, which empisised the idea that tanks are weak in the rear, this like LoS being needed for weapons that were on one side on the vehicles.
Psyker powers were also far more dynamic and unique not just 12 different ways to say you do d3 mortal wounds.
On top of that you had a lot more thematic rules like challenges, death and glory, tank shocks, pinning and fear tests that meant more ect ect. Battles flowed far more dramatically and were much more engaging.
These are just some of the example of what i mean when i say 40k used to be about thematic battles, it had more complicated rules and more in depth rules that really were not difficult to remember or follow. The constant complaining about USR was one that never really was an issue save for places like dakka who liked to complain about having to remember things.
8th and 9th ed stripped out these in depth rules in favor of more streamlined content. Units that were once designed to be brutal melee strikers that had very few units that could stand up to them in melee now have just boring hits on 2+. Removal of initive in favor of "Well we just all attack at once now." The general dumbing down of rules and psyker powers, the removal of thematic elements like templates and facings in favor of "faster" mechanics, and the false guise of "It removed arguments"
On top of that, many of the armies lack real balance because the current system is designed to be reactive to the tournament scene, with balance sheets directly caused by tournaments.
The changing of the wounding system, hit system, and AP system all have reduced the verity of weapons making them all feel bland and boring and in some cases, guard, making their entire army extremely weak.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table, because all of those thematic interactions have been removed. Modern 40k games are more or less you are just there for the ride. The average 40k player is playing your typical ITC table, terrain, and rules. Every singe game in major cities or local shops are just all games to prepare for the next tournament.
My city, a city of 300k, with 5 shops, all are the same thing, boring tournament prep games, no flavor, no soul, just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes.
Modern 40k is just the most souless board game in comparison to the systems of the past, HH 2.0 seems to even validate that this is something that a large portion of the gaming population crave as well with HH 2.0 rules maintaining far more of the thematic interactions along with more back and forht interactions via the reaction system, allowing for a more dynamic and non predictable outcome.
Thats my elaboration on what i mean when i say.
"40k went from a game wehere you played out dramatic battles of the 4st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed."
I appreciate you taking the time to write that out.
If I were to summarize:
1 - customization to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be
2 - systems that better represented the interactions ( melee specialists )
3 - armor facings & templates
4 - psychic powers not being just mortal wounds
1 - Customization like characters taking weapons? Aside from that the customization hasn't worsened. It got deeper. If I wanted to play Thousand Sons I took Ahriman and Rubrics as troops. Now I can take exalted that is deceitful or direct. I can make an army that jumps around the board or one that puts everything into punishing with spells or one that aims to be the most steadfast automatons out there. I can have a deeply prophetic sorcerer that can foresee combat and deftly avoid or if caught can slip in and out at will riding an exceptional disk of tzeentch.
There isn't anything I am missing about customization from old editions. In fact the options now are so far beyond better that I genuinely struggle to identify with this concern.
2 - I'm not sure why your barometer for something being good at melee is it hitting on 3s while the opponent hits on 5s. There are absolutely clear melee specialists in the game and they're not typically something you counter with basic melee unless they're a glass cannon. This feels more like you enjoyed being WS5+ and punching down by clearing all the models that were in combat with you before they got to strike.
3 - I fail to see how this is "Warhammer" than simply a preference for wargame mechanics.
4 - For much of 40K there wasn't even a psychic phase. In CSM 3.5 my spell options were -- corsucating flame, bolt of change, and twisting path -- two of which are basically "witchfire" spells. On the minor spells I had reroll witchfire, reroll hits, -1 LD to a psyker, strategy rating 3 ( not really a spell ), caster can't be charged without LD test.
7th wasn't much better with some disciplines almost entirely dedicated to witchfire spells, but there was utility. Too bad no one used anything except invisibility and shroud.
Now I have : a targeted reroll, fallback and shoot/charge, revive a model, mortal wounds, debuff move and advance, reroll wounds, warp units, debuff LD and A, -2 to psychic tests, mortal wounds, -1 to hit, mortal wounds, heal, invulnerable, mortal wounds, debuff S, buff S to a unit, prevent a unit from shooting outside 24", mortal wounds, strip invulns, mortal wounds, +1 to hit, buff S and A to a model, move twice, increase range, kill model, mortal wounds based on target unit's actions.
My warlord can redeploy models, move after overwatch, grant obsec, block rerolls against them, and so on.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table
For the 90% of factions this is unequivocally untrue and then it is also untrue for the top books when they have to face something on equal standing.
just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
All of this just seems like the old rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. Fear and Terror were neat, but just about everyone and their uncle found ways to avoid it when GW obliged with rules updates. There's never been more "Warhammer" in the system than there has been since 9th edition. Nids might be overpowered, but it is undeniable that their codex expertly encompasses the concept of their army as do the other 9th edition codexes.
#1 yeah like how i modified all my guardsmen to have camo cloaks and now doctrines no longer exist, I can't take veterans as troops and suddenly my veteran army based around aircav literally cannot be played in a matched play environment.... Oh also the vendetta is no longer in the codex either.
#3 yeah i tend to prefer wargame mechanics in my war game.
In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
"This is the 18th Trynzendian Foot Horde"
"Wow, what's their fluff?"
"They're badass chem troopers from a volcano world who ride around in chimeras and heavily sealed and armored leman Russes"
"What rules do they use?"
"Er... catachan? Maybe Pyromaniacs and the Lord's Approval if I really hate myself?"
Crusade has done this as well:
"this is the Order of the Luminous Beacon. Their tenets of service to the emperor are to live humbly, to aid the lost, and to scourge evil"
"What are their goals?"
"Well one of them is designated to be a Living Saint and wants to be one really badly"
Back in earlier editions, you may not have had sub faction rules, but you could use the generic rules to fluff out your army:
The 18th Trynzendian spends lots of points upgrading it's chimeras and Russes with Rough Terrain Modifications and Extra Armor, all it's troops have Chem Inhalers and Carapace Armor, etc. It would be much easier to reflect the 18th Trynzendian in the 4th edition book than in the 8th, even with sub-faction rules.
The Order of the Luminous Beacon can ally with Imperial Guard modeled not as a cohesive unit but a ragged, ill-fitting band of misfits (collected by the kindness and mercy of the Order's tenets) without any penalties, and didn't have to bring a Living Saint (or someone aspiring to be one). It would be much easier to reflect the Order of the Luminous Beacon in a 4th edition narrative campaign than in a Crusade one, even with updated crusade rules.
EDIT:
I also think we should stop lumping 3rd - 7th as a monolith, because IMHO people lose perspective. In this post I am referencing 4th.
JEREMSTER wrote: I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?
Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.
This sadly sums it up.
Yeah nothing says a game about dramatic battles in the 41st Millennium than the IGOUGO turn structure LOL Take off the rose tinted glasses goddamn
IGOUGO is a totally seprate take on the topic, if you wanna discuss about whats better that would be suited for another thread because its key component of the game.
IGOUGO does not make or break a thematic system, there are better versions of player interaction, there are worse.
Yes it's thematic your army sits there and does nothing at all LOL Core mechanics go hand in hand with whether a game is thematic
Unit1126PLL wrote: In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
It REALLY didn't since nothing is stopping you from going outside Catachan rules. My Marines go with whatever rules fit the army I want to construct.
The subfaction rules are nice, although still pale in comparison to 4th ed Doctrines, or numerous other optiins available prior to the no-model-no-rules paradigm.
Core mechanics go hand in hand with a game thematic yes. I never said warhammer as it is, IS the best it can be by thematic standards.;
What i HAVE been saying, is that the current iteration of 40k is far and away much less thematic then it was in the past.
You seem to be under the assumption i have been saying that 40k is the most thematic game its been and it could not be more thematic then it was in the past. Which is not a correct assumption.
40k in the past was FAR more thematic then it is currently and it could be even better.
Unit1126PLL wrote: In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
It REALLY didn't since nothing is stopping you from going outside Catachan rules. My Marines go with whatever rules fit the army I want to construct.
The subfaction rules are nice, although still pale in comparison to 4th ed Doctrines, or numerous other optiins available prior to the no-model-no-rules paradigm.
This is why i love the Rites of war from HH. They are like the best middle ground for all of them.
I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.
This is more of a problem with the lackluster Ork codex sadly. Sure, when they first dropped they had those crazy buggy and aircraft lists. As soon as those were taken away, the Ork codex sucked. There's no synergy between different unit types. The typical Ork vehicles are largely bad. There's no real ability to take hordes. Dakka weapons were a side-grade at best, and a nerf at worst for most units. Dakka weapons should have became a weapon ability not a weapon type.
The new Ork codex was so lazy they didn't even add Custom Kultures.
MinscS2 wrote: 40k is in a great state if you're playing mainly to have fun and aren't overly competitive. I have fun playing my (gakky) IG against my two regular Nid-opponents.
40k is probably horrible if both players are very competitive and one brings a list that's not up to speed against list that is.
This has been my experience as well.
From what I've seen, there tends to be a lot more silver bullet matchups, where one side is pretty much just dead, which sucks (especially if someone is min/maxing). However, the sheer variety of what you can build and how you can field your army means that (provided you've got a fair selection of models and a 9th edition dex), you can usually tailor your army to match up better against things you are having a lot of trouble with after a little practice.
MinscS2 wrote: 40k is in a great state if you're playing mainly to have fun and aren't overly competitive. I have fun playing my (gakky) IG against my two regular Nid-opponents.
40k is probably horrible if both players are very competitive and one brings a list that's not up to speed against list that is.
This has been my experience as well.
From what I've seen, there tends to be a lot more silver bullet matchups, where one side is pretty much just dead, which sucks (especially if someone is min/maxing). However, the sheer variety of what you can build and how you can field your army means that (provided you've got a fair selection of models and a 9th edition dex), you can usually tailor your army to match up better against things you are having a lot of trouble with after a little practice.
SO this is confusing to me, because what you just described, "You can field your army means that ... you can usually tailor your army to match up better against things you are having toruble with " Thats literally one of the key components of being a competative player. List tailoring is generally regarded and being a competitive move and frowned upon.
Backspacehacker wrote: There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.
Because their focus is on competitive tournament play. It's how we end up in a world where symmetrical terrain is becoming the norm.
Insectum7 wrote: Losing a turn because of a failed Morale check is not Damage In/Out. It's effectively a suppression. Likewise pinning. Sweeping Advance resulting in a unit loss is damage, for sure, but it's an alternate route to get there in a way that gives different units different weaknesses, thus diversifying the available units in the game and also diversifying the tactics required to defeat them. All of which are good things.
Unlike the current "morale" system which, as I've said on many occasions, is about as far removed from a morale system as one could be, and is in effect a 'lose more' mechanic that punishes players for losing models by making them lose more models. It's horrid.
Having said that, ERJAK, despite his irrepressible (and typical) ITG'ing in this thread, is right about Sweeping Advances though. They were a blanket rule that didn't scale in any realistic way, so you could have hard-as-nails elite units completely wiped out by pathetic infantry types (the classic max-squad Chaos Terminators caught by under strength Gretchin example) just because of a few bad dice rolls. It was too all-or-nothing.
Unit1126PLL wrote: In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
It REALLY didn't since nothing is stopping you from going outside Catachan rules. My Marines go with whatever rules fit the army I want to construct.
I even put in my post an example of going outside the Catachan rules.
Pray tell what rules would you give the 18th Trynzendian that are more thematic than my 4th edition examples?
Well the thing here is that you don't need Carapace armor on everything as you aren't completely ignored by even Heavy Bolters, so honestly that's kinda whatever. For heavier armor, you got me, but terrain modifications is easily done with the upgrade so you don't degrade in movement as you lose wounds.
Like, honestly, you legit lost nothing thanks to 8th/9th, and that's not even considering what a new codex might give you either.
Unit1126PLL wrote: In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
"This is the 18th Trynzendian Foot Horde"
"Wow, what's their fluff?"
"They're badass chem troopers from a volcano world who ride around in chimeras and heavily sealed and armored leman Russes"
"What rules do they use?"
"Er... catachan? Maybe Pyromaniacs and the Lord's Approval if I really hate myself?"
Crusade has done this as well:
"this is the Order of the Luminous Beacon. Their tenets of service to the emperor are to live humbly, to aid the lost, and to scourge evil"
"What are their goals?"
"Well one of them is designated to be a Living Saint and wants to be one really badly"
I've noticed that parallel as well- and also how GW has taken the inverse approach with the mission/objective design, relevant to earlier discussion in this thread. You see people argue that bare-bones missions and objectives support narrative play because you can apply your own layer of meaning to them... and then turn around and praise the highly specific subfaction and Crusade rules because they're narratively themed (so long as your intended narrative fits their constraints).
I'm honestly okay with either approach, I just wish GW would pick one or the other. A bare-bones set of rules that is lightweight and lets you fill in the blanks and build your narrative, or one that implements very specific narrative-oriented mechanics while accepting the inevitable bloat.
Daedalus81 wrote: Has it? Because I've made replies to some of those things ( that were also very vague ) and then people go radio silent.
Sure i'll elaborate.
Spoiler:
From 3rd to 7th 40k was a better system to play out the original spirit of the game, which was, to re-enact, and depict thematic and dramatic battles of the 41st millennia on the table top. This was doable because of a wide range of unit customization, rules, abilities, and powers, which allowed the player to make an army that fit their idea of what their army should be or a theme to it. A player in past editions would have the ability to make very thematic and fluffy armies and they would still work.
The game also had systems that better represented the interactions of weapons and units on the battlegrounds, things like templates and blast markers representing explosions, higher skilled melee units able to cut down untrained melee units with much more ease rather hten you just hit on a 3+ no matter what.
You also had things like armor facings, which empisised the idea that tanks are weak in the rear, this like LoS being needed for weapons that were on one side on the vehicles.
Psyker powers were also far more dynamic and unique not just 12 different ways to say you do d3 mortal wounds.
On top of that you had a lot more thematic rules like challenges, death and glory, tank shocks, pinning and fear tests that meant more ect ect. Battles flowed far more dramatically and were much more engaging.
These are just some of the example of what i mean when i say 40k used to be about thematic battles, it had more complicated rules and more in depth rules that really were not difficult to remember or follow. The constant complaining about USR was one that never really was an issue save for places like dakka who liked to complain about having to remember things.
8th and 9th ed stripped out these in depth rules in favor of more streamlined content. Units that were once designed to be brutal melee strikers that had very few units that could stand up to them in melee now have just boring hits on 2+. Removal of initive in favor of "Well we just all attack at once now." The general dumbing down of rules and psyker powers, the removal of thematic elements like templates and facings in favor of "faster" mechanics, and the false guise of "It removed arguments"
On top of that, many of the armies lack real balance because the current system is designed to be reactive to the tournament scene, with balance sheets directly caused by tournaments.
The changing of the wounding system, hit system, and AP system all have reduced the verity of weapons making them all feel bland and boring and in some cases, guard, making their entire army extremely weak.
The majority of a game is decided on the list building, not the table, because all of those thematic interactions have been removed. Modern 40k games are more or less you are just there for the ride. The average 40k player is playing your typical ITC table, terrain, and rules. Every singe game in major cities or local shops are just all games to prepare for the next tournament.
My city, a city of 300k, with 5 shops, all are the same thing, boring tournament prep games, no flavor, no soul, just boring net lists that focus on statistical outcomes.
Modern 40k is just the most souless board game in comparison to the systems of the past, HH 2.0 seems to even validate that this is something that a large portion of the gaming population crave as well with HH 2.0 rules maintaining far more of the thematic interactions along with more back and forht interactions via the reaction system, allowing for a more dynamic and non predictable outcome.
Thats my elaboration on what i mean when i say.
"40k went from a game wehere you played out dramatic battles of the 4st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed."
I only regret that I have but one exalt to give for this post.
Also, while it's true that some options are gone, now most of the factions have way more units to choose from. The 3rd edition ork codex had like a third or half of the current roster, and losing a few combinations on some HQs was widely compensated.
Options existing in a codex means little. If they are so bad, no one runs them, or that they can't be put in to any existing good build, then they may as well not exist. Marines are a great example of that. If tomorrow someone removed almost everything out of the codex, bar blades, v.vets, mounted characters, and the obligatory troops and dreads, most people wouldn't notice all the options being gone. Other books are the same, that is why w40k is such a risky thing for new players, there is a ton of kits who just make trap options.
Dark reapers are another great example of this as well.
Exaulted sorcerers for tsons. Predators, or really any T7 vehicle in the marine codex
Insectum7 wrote: Losing a turn because of a failed Morale check is not Damage In/Out. It's effectively a suppression. Likewise pinning. Sweeping Advance resulting in a unit loss is damage, for sure, but it's an alternate route to get there in a way that gives different units different weaknesses, thus diversifying the available units in the game and also diversifying the tactics required to defeat them. All of which are good things.
Unlike the current "morale" system which, as I've said on many occasions, is about as far removed from a morale system as one could be, and is in effect a 'lose more' mechanic that punishes players for losing models by making them lose more models. It's horrid.
Having said that, ERJAK, despite his irrepressible (and typical) ITG'ing in this thread, is right about Sweeping Advances though. They were a blanket rule that didn't scale in any realistic way, so you could have hard-as-nails elite units completely wiped out by pathetic infantry types (the classic max-squad Chaos Terminators caught by under strength Gretchin example) just because of a few bad dice rolls. It was too all-or-nothing.
Sure. Like I've mentioned in a previous post the resolution around Sweeping Advance could have been fine-tuned a bit. But it was still a better paradigm/directiin than what we have now.
That said you would have needed a string of astoundingly horrific rolling to be in a situation where grots ran down Chaos Terminators. But Sweeping Advance would have made it much more likely that a few CSM Terminators rout and wipe out even a large unit of grots.
Insectum7 wrote: Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.
That isn't a net list.
And honestly the rest of the post sorta shows why it's fruitless to bother engaging. Like this is insanity:
"There isn't anything I am missing about customization from old editions. In fact the options now are so far beyond better that I genuinely struggle to identify with this concern."
The feeling is mutual, I guess. Some people can't stop living in the past and there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's hardly an objective take on the current situation to say there is less customization.
Insectum7 wrote: Like I've mentioned in a previous post the resolution around Sweeping Advance could have been fine-tuned a bit.
I want to point out that GW also swung back and forth on this. I remember reading 4th Ed designer's notes where it said something to the effect of 'now that Sweeping Advance just keeps a unit locked in combat, you'll no longer have the situation of a bad roll resulting in a lucky Termagant running down a whole squad of Tactical Marines'. Then in 5th it was back to instant death for the fleeing squad.
And like, yeah, fair enough; the simple implementation of the fleeing unit being totally wiped out did lead to some head-scratcher moments. But there are certainly other ways to do it. The core idea of having morale failure in melee be a really bad thing and noticeably different from a morale failure due to ranged combat, making melee a particularly lethal tool when employed correctly, was a solid concept that just had some fringe edge cases to work out.
Sledgehammer wrote: #1 yeah like how i modified all my guardsmen to have camo cloaks and now doctrines no longer exist, I can't take veterans as troops and suddenly my veteran army based around aircav literally cannot be played in a matched play environment.... Oh also the vendetta is no longer in the codex either.
#3 yeah i tend to prefer wargame mechanics in my war game.
what a load of horse gak.
Taking veterans as troops is your bar for customization? Ok. I'm also not sure why the Vendetta not being in the book prohibits you from using it.
IG have the oldest codex that doesn't even approach any of the 9th edition glow ups and is approaching 5 years old.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Unlike the current "morale" system which, as I've said on many occasions, is about as far removed from a morale system as one could be, and is in effect a 'lose more' mechanic that punishes players for losing models by making them lose more models. It's horrid.
Having said that, ERJAK, despite his irrepressible (and typical) ITG'ing in this thread, is right about Sweeping Advances though. They were a blanket rule that didn't scale in any realistic way, so you could have hard-as-nails elite units completely wiped out by pathetic infantry types (the classic max-squad Chaos Terminators caught by under strength Gretchin example) just because of a few bad dice rolls. It was too all-or-nothing
Yep. Morale should be more akin to losing ground than just losing models. If those models can't disengage and retreat then you lose additional models.
Daedalus81 wrote: Taking veterans as troops is your bar for customization? Ok.
That's a pretty low bar, Daedalus. Guard regiments composed of hardened veterans (see: Tanith) have been a thing in lore for a very long time, used to be supported in rules, and are exactly the sort of thing that 9th's free-form army composition rules should facilitate. Airmobile like Elysians are no longer Matched Play legal. Light infantry don't exist. Grenadiers don't exist. Carapace armor isn't a thing. There's a lot of stuff that Guard used to be able to take that they can't; being able to either copy one of the 'big' regiments or pick two crappy traits from a list doesn't really suffice as a substitute.
And personally I tend to think that tanks scooting sideways across the battlefield while firing out of their antennae is kind of stupid, but YMMV.
Daedalus81 wrote: Taking veterans as troops is your bar for customization? Ok.
That's a pretty low bar, Daedalus. Guard regiments composed of hardened veterans (see: Tanith) have been a thing in lore for a very long time, used to be supported in rules, and are exactly the sort of thing that 9th's free-form army composition rules should facilitate. Airmobile like Elysians are no longer Matched Play legal. Light infantry don't exist. Grenadiers don't exist. Carapace armor isn't a thing. There's a lot of stuff that Guard used to be able to take that they can't; being able to either copy one of the 'big' regiments or pick two crappy traits from a list doesn't really suffice as a substitute.
This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think. You have numerous examples of unit upgrades that cost points. There's an avenue through Armies of Reknown ( via a horrible business model ) to add super specialized armies as well.
And personally I tend to think that tanks scooting sideways across the battlefield while firing out of their antennae is kind of stupid, but YMMV.
That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.
Daedalus81 wrote: This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think.
Oh, so, to put it another way: Wait and see?
Daedalus81 wrote: That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.
Yeah, but he didn't suggest that. Once again someone comes up with a problem, and your response - because it's always your response - is "Well we can't do X because Y happened in the past.".
No one has said anything about a "pivot tool". That hasn't been in use since 2nd Ed, and we didn't have tanks firing through themsleves and via track links problems in 3rd through 7th.
In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
"This is the 18th Trynzendian Foot Horde"
"Wow, what's their fluff?"
"They're badass chem troopers from a volcano world who ride around in chimeras and heavily sealed and armored leman Russes"
"What rules do they use?"
"Er... catachan? Maybe Pyromaniacs and the Lord's Approval if I really hate myself?"
Crusade has done this as well:
"this is the Order of the Luminous Beacon. Their tenets of service to the emperor are to live humbly, to aid the lost, and to scourge evil"
"What are their goals?"
"Well one of them is designated to be a Living Saint and wants to be one really badly"
Back in earlier editions, you may not have had sub faction rules, but you could use the generic rules to fluff out your army:
The 18th Trynzendian spends lots of points upgrading it's chimeras and Russes with Rough Terrain Modifications and Extra Armor, all it's troops have Chem Inhalers and Carapace Armor, etc. It would be much easier to reflect the 18th Trynzendian in the 4th edition book than in the 8th, even with sub-faction rules.
The Order of the Luminous Beacon can ally with Imperial Guard modeled not as a cohesive unit but a ragged, ill-fitting band of misfits (collected by the kindness and mercy of the Order's tenets) without any penalties, and didn't have to bring a Living Saint (or someone aspiring to be one). It would be much easier to reflect the Order of the Luminous Beacon in a 4th edition narrative campaign than in a Crusade one, even with updated crusade rules.
EDIT:
I also think we should stop lumping 3rd - 7th as a monolith, because IMHO people lose perspective. In this post I am referencing 4th.
Okay...
I was going to go through all my resources and try to build something like the guard army you're talking about here, but I think I'll just concede on that front and just say "Yeah, you know what? It is hard to build a guard army with 9th ed flexibility using an 8th ed dex." And honestly? I'll concede even further: even when we get the new dex, I doubt that the customization it provides will follow this format.
But I had to respond to the sisters piece and Crusade comments.
I know you have decided not to like Living Saints, for whatever reason(s) - and I'm cool with that. Not everyone has to like everything, and if they aren't for you, then they aren't for you. But I think that you think that's all the Crusade that sisters got... But the Saint is just the icing on the cake.
First of all, the real workhorse in the 9th ed sisters book, from my perspective, are the Blessings of the Faithful. They aren't connected to rank when you use them in matched play, which to me is a bit of a missed opportunity- these upgrades are similar to the "Chapter Master" type of upgrade that most 9th ed dexes have, and I feel that they should be treated in the same way: luckily, in Crusade, they are. You have to purchase them with requisition points, but you can only do it when the character is achieving the Heroic or Legendary Rank. What this does is create models that we can use to represent Canoness Commanders, Cannoness Preceptors and Cannones Superia (Unless you're OoOML, because they're stuck with Junith). Having access to these types of high ranking characters is critical to building an identity for a custom order.
While not ALL Crusades are interested in Sainthood, pretty much EVERY Crusade will want their leaders to grow pure enough to be worthy of one of these blessings, whether you choose to link it to rank in your head-cannon or not.
Next: Priests. OMG... Priests!
So if you want to go back to 3-7th ed Ministorum priests of the "All my friends are really angry" variety and tell me with a straight face that they're more flexible and dynamic than the 9th edition suite of priests with their choice of Hymns of Battle, Relics and WL traits... well I just don't know how you can justify it.
And to respond to the custom order that you created, what you're looking for is an Army of Faith from the Vigilus Alone book- it allows you to include guard, marine and sisters units in the same detachment without losing purity bonuses. You can include whichever guard units you want and they don't even need to be in a separate detachment... Though that option exists too if that better suits the character of "your dudes."
I took a look at the 4th ed BRB today before I sat down to write this- I think it was 4th- it had kill team and narrative campaign rules in it. The progression system was 6 battle honours- a d6 table for characters, bikes and infantry and vehicles. No limit on experience levels, but once you got to 6, you'd have every battle honour that existed, so there'd be no point in going further. And progression was linear- a level every 1k exp, so just as easy to get to blooded from green as it is to get to Heroic from Battle Hardened.
Worse, at level six? Every character in the game has the same six BH as every other character in the game. Absolute rubbish compared to what we have now.
And finally, you can talk about your chem dog guard with their cool regiment trait carapace armour and then jam sisters in with them as if previous ed sisters had the same kind of option, but they didn't, because while guard were privileged enough to have some mechanisms for differentiating regiments, sisters did not receive such a luxury until 8th. Before then, the only difference between orders was flavour text.
Daedalus81 wrote: This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think.
Oh, so, to put it another way: Wait and see?
Daedalus81 wrote: That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.
Yeah, but he didn't suggest that. Once again someone comes up with a problem, and your response - because it's always your response - is "Well we can't do X because Y happened in the past.".
No one has said anything about a "pivot tool". That hasn't been in use since 2nd Ed, and we didn't have tanks firing through themsleves and via track links problems in 3rd through 7th.
Wait and see in the same manner that the only thing different about GW is that they added a Facebook page, right?
Shooting from antennas isn't actually a problem. It used to be. People desire weapon arcs and all that - that's fine, but it isn't an easily balanced concept, which is puzzling when people here all seem to be very concerned about balance issues.
Jidmah wrote: What did you expecting from someone who doesn't even know that dire avengers are aspect warriors?
Where did I indicate that? I addressed the list which had Dire Avengers in it, then aspect warriors in general.
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Insectum7 wrote: So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.
Given that an Ork Nob is dumber than a sack of hammers and couldn't hit the side of an immobilized Land Raider while spraying full auto I can't imagine why.
Melee combat is not the only quality a soldier can possess on the battlefield.
God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.
Sorry that the line infantry of armies which can field numbers in a single world in excess of the marine population of the entire galaxy don't compare to marines. My heart aches for you.
In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.
"This is the 18th Trynzendian Foot Horde"
"Wow, what's their fluff?"
"They're badass chem troopers from a volcano world who ride around in chimeras and heavily sealed and armored leman Russes"
"What rules do they use?"
"Er... catachan? Maybe Pyromaniacs and the Lord's Approval if I really hate myself?"
Crusade has done this as well:
"this is the Order of the Luminous Beacon. Their tenets of service to the emperor are to live humbly, to aid the lost, and to scourge evil"
"What are their goals?"
"Well one of them is designated to be a Living Saint and wants to be one really badly"
Back in earlier editions, you may not have had sub faction rules, but you could use the generic rules to fluff out your army:
The 18th Trynzendian spends lots of points upgrading it's chimeras and Russes with Rough Terrain Modifications and Extra Armor, all it's troops have Chem Inhalers and Carapace Armor, etc. It would be much easier to reflect the 18th Trynzendian in the 4th edition book than in the 8th, even with sub-faction rules.
The Order of the Luminous Beacon can ally with Imperial Guard modeled not as a cohesive unit but a ragged, ill-fitting band of misfits (collected by the kindness and mercy of the Order's tenets) without any penalties, and didn't have to bring a Living Saint (or someone aspiring to be one). It would be much easier to reflect the Order of the Luminous Beacon in a 4th edition narrative campaign than in a Crusade one, even with updated crusade rules.
EDIT:
I also think we should stop lumping 3rd - 7th as a monolith, because IMHO people lose perspective. In this post I am referencing 4th.
Okay...
I was going to go through all my resources and try to build something like the guard army you're talking about here, but I think I'll just concede on that front and just say "Yeah, you know what? It is hard to build a guard army with 9th ed flexibility using an 8th ed dex." And honestly? I'll concede even further: even when we get the new dex, I doubt that the customization it provides will follow this format.
But I had to respond to the sisters piece and Crusade comments
I know you have decided not to like Living Saints, for whatever reason(s) - and I'm cool with that. Not everyone has to like everything, and if they aren't for you, then they aren't for you. But I think that you think that's all the Crusade that sisters got... But the Saint is just the icing on the cake.
Isn't the saint the main system?
First of all, the real workhorse in the 9th ed sisters book, from my perspective, are the Blessings of the Faithful. They aren't connected to rank when you use them in matched play, which to me is a bit of a missed opportunity- these upgrades are similar to the "Chapter Master" type of upgrade that most 9th ed dexes have, and I feel that they should be treated in the same way: luckily, in Crusade, they are. You have to purchase them with requisition points, but you can only do it when the character is achieving the Heroic or Legendary Rank. What this does is create models that we can use to represent Canoness Commanders, Cannoness Preceptors and Cannones Superia (Unless you're OoOML, because they're stuck with Junith). Having access to these types of high ranking characters is critical to building an identity for a custom order.
So your custom order can't have one to start with? What's the logic there, they found the order and then sort out the leadership later?
While not ALL Crusades are interested in Sainthood, pretty much EVERY Crusade will want their leaders to grow pure enough to be worthy of one of these blessings, whether you choose to link it to rank in your head-cannon or not.
Being a commander isn't a "blessing", and the fact that my order can't have Canoness Superia in the lore is silly.
As is the fact that they have a different one every campaign... unless you use the same crusade army through multiple campaigns, which sucks for the people just starting it. Crusade is not balanced for an army with 51 Crusade Points vs an army with like, 3.
Next: Priests. OMG... Priests!
Your enthusiasm was almost enough to care about models that I really don't care about.
So if you want to go back to 3-7th ed Ministorum priests of the "All my friends are really angry" variety and tell me with a straight face that they're more flexible and dynamic than the 9th edition suite of priests with their choice of Hymns of Battle, Relics and WL traits... well I just don't know how you can justify it.
In the 4th edition book, pretty much any inquisitorial henchman could be fluffed as a priest, and pretty much any inquisitor and his retinue could be a priest and retinue. Want a priest armed with a flame thrower, inferno pistol, and power armor through the wealth of the Ecclesiarchy?
Sorry you can't have it. Not since 4th.
And to respond to the custom order that you created, what you're looking for is an Army of Faith from the Vigilus Alone book- it allows you to include guard, marine and sisters units in the same detachment without losing purity bonuses. You can include whichever guard units you want and they don't even need to be in a separate detachment... Though that option exists too if that better suits the character of "your dudes."
I would have to look more into this to have an opinion on it but it sounds pretty incredible. Regimental Doctrines, Miracle Dice, etc. all in one army sounds awesome.
I took a look at the 4th ed BRB today before I sat down to write this- I think it was 4th- it had kill team and narrative campaign rules in it. The progression system was 6 battle honours- a d6 table for characters, bikes and infantry and vehicles. No limit on experience levels, but once you got to 6, you'd have every battle honour that existed, so there'd be no point in going further. And progression was linear- a level every 1k exp, so just as easy to get to blooded from green as it is to get to Heroic from Battle Hardened.
Worse, at level six? Every character in the game has the same six BH as every other character in the game. Absolute rubbish compared to what we have now.
Okay?
I mean I like 4th because it isn't really a progression system, and dislike crusade because it is basically *only* a progression system...
...And you tell me 4th's progression system is bad?
No gak it's bad, they put the campaign section focus on actually running a campaign, and not on the 51 different ways you can turn an enemy inside out in one turn if they haven't progressed as far as you yet.
I don't think the fact that my character has the Reverse Wedgie battle honor, the Rod of Lordly Might Crusade Relic, the Ugly Stick weapon upgrade, and the Really Angry Really Alot battle honor makes it more narrative than not.
Progression isn't narrative, and a balanced progression system isn't bad narrative.
And finally, you can talk about your chem dog guard with their cool regiment trait carapace armour and then jam sisters in with them as if previous ed sisters had the same kind of option, but they didn't, because while guard were privileged enough to have some mechanisms for differentiating regiments, sisters did not receive such a luxury until 8th. Before then, the only difference between orders was flavour text.
Yes, it wasn't perfect. But I genuinely don't care much for the current Sororitas faction rules. They just don't do it for me. At least back then your army list could reflect your fluff a bit more, but things were very different because Sororitas were embedded in Inquisition pretty much inextricably.
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.
The feeling is mutual, I guess. Some people can't stop living in the past and there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's hardly an objective take on the current situation to say there is less customization.
Insectum7 wrote: So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.
Given that an Ork Nob is dumber than a sack of hammers and couldn't hit the side of an immobilized Land Raider while spraying full auto I can't imagine why.
Melee combat is not the only quality a soldier can possess on the battlefield.
Yet I expect a Nob to handily be able to tear a Marine limb from limb. Also, source for Nobs being "dumber than a sack of hammers".
God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.
Sorry that the line infantry of armies which can field numbers in a single world in excess of the marine population of the entire galaxy don't compare to marines. My heart aches for you.
So Tyranid Warriors can't exist by your logic. Are you aware that wars aren't fought by infantry lining up and going at it, phalanx-style? I can't believe that people are actually using this as some sort of justification. Explain to me why you feel forced to follow this logic in a world where machine guns, artillery, force concentration, carpet bombing and friggin nuclear warheads are readily available.
I think this topic is always a dialogue of the deaf - but to chip in.
GW have clearly moved 40k to be more of a "game" than "quasi-RPG". The core rules are focused on progressive scoring that you design your list to do - and not throwing down your models, fighting for 5-7 turns and whoever is still standing is the winner.
Since form follows function, there's a lot more focus on whether things "work". Units and armies are condemned as OP or Trash, and people say victory is all in list building (I mean people have said that forever but it seems to loom larger - even if I think its less true). But while I'd argue balance is better than previous editions, there's this gnawing Spike-like voice saying "but this unit is worse tho, why take it? You know option X is better than Y, so always take X" etc
But the thing is - I don't think the issue is 8th/9th edition. I think the issue is mentality. Because for me this voice started to whisper in at least 5th edition. That's when the people I played with started to take the game seriously - "got competitive", "played to win" etc. This was when people started to have the spare cash and so if an army was top tier for years it would multiply in the club.
For me that era of naivety/innocence was 2nd and 3rd. But it died. You can say "look at all these options a 3.5 Chaos Lord can take" - sure. But by the end of 3.5... you didn't see what. 50% of these? More? It had been cookie cut all the way down. The same combos appeared on table after table.
You could bring some "fluffy" grab bag of options - but unless you found someone with a similar mentality, you were setting yourself up to be stomped. Certainly by 5th.
There are options in 9th. A Codex typically has 6 chapters - and a bunch of custom traits. You've probably got 6-12 relics and warlord traits. You could build some very unusual armies and characters on the back of that. You could lean into the stratagems that are there but no one bothers spending the CP on.
But by and large - or at least where I play - people don't. Because why take the worse option? That exploratory innocence - rooted in being new to the hobby and not having a quasi-professional esport scene telling you "how to play" - cannot be recovered. 40k is a game, and as such you might as well try and make it work. I think 8th was a great step in that direction. 9th is good too - although lethality is too high and its probably too complicated if you aren't playing regularly.
You could bring some "fluffy" grab bag of options - but unless you found someone with a similar mentality, you were setting yourself up to be stomped. Certainly by 5th.
The game was like that as far back as 3rd. I got into the game in 3rd as a quasi esport, and this has always been how 40k operated.
But by the end of 3.5... you didn't see what. 50% of these? More? It had been cookie cut all the way down. The same combos appeared on table after table.
I was heavily into the tournament scene at that point so my experience will be shaded by that, but you didn't see 90% of the options in the chaos 3.5 book. It was typically one of two lists that was taken: the iron warriors list for its extra heavy support choice, and the slaanesh list.
You did have your snowflakes show up once in a while sporting a world eaters or a night lords list or some other variant but they were in the same numbers as I experienced in 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th as well. that being - a definite rarity.
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.
The feeling is mutual, I guess. Some people can't stop living in the past and there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's hardly an objective take on the current situation to say there is less customization.
Insectum7 wrote: So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.
Given that an Ork Nob is dumber than a sack of hammers and couldn't hit the side of an immobilized Land Raider while spraying full auto I can't imagine why.
Melee combat is not the only quality a soldier can possess on the battlefield.
Yet I expect a Nob to handily be able to tear a Marine limb from limb. Also, source for Nobs being "dumber than a sack of hammers".
God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.
Sorry that the line infantry of armies which can field numbers in a single world in excess of the marine population of the entire galaxy don't compare to marines. My heart aches for you.
So Tyranid Warriors can't exist by your logic. Are you aware that wars aren't fought by infantry lining up and going at it, phalanx-style? I can't believe that people are actually using this as some sort of justification. Explain to me why you feel forced to follow this logic in a world where machine guns, artillery, force concentration, carpet bombing and friggin nuclear warheads are readily available.
Oof! Chaos, the faction that was the very epitome of kitbashing models, is cursed to cope with a tiny amount of weapon options. This is a disgrace. Lads, go back to playing Oldhammer.
Those Chaos options from 3.5 weren't just for Chaos Lords, they were for all characters, which included all Aspiring Champions. And for +10 PPM, you could make any Chosen an Aspiring Champion. So, you could have an entire squad that could select from that list. Now look at them.
Atleast we got options left for our lords and terminator lords.
and not just paragraphs, however i fully expect GW to paragraph and exactly what is in the box for our next codex.
I think it would help the arguments and sides more clearly if people would state what type of game they are actually looking for.
Do people want a wargame or do they want a roleplaying game? Do they want Warcraft 3 or StarCraft, and so on and so on. Because ultimately a lot of the discussions had are just conflicts between what people want from a game and not what they game should be(which is more up to the owners of the IP).
Regarding unit options it would be a non-issue if WYSIWYG became much more lax. As long as I don't need have my heroes magnetized for 20+ weapon options we could have all the weapon options in the world. However, a lot of options would lean on the game being an RPG game rather than a wargame, and so on and so on.
Now there is something to be said for just straight up more units and factions being available. But that never had to be at the cost of unit customizeability.
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.
You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.
As someone who has maintained that damn rainbow table for the ork tactics thread since 5th, I can assure you that there have never been as few useless units in the codex as there are now.
Up till the current codex pretty much every competitive army consisted of the same few units and only differed between each other by switching weights between those choices. It was a give than two thirds of the codex would never see a tournament list. By the time the last CA was released, almost every ork unit that wasn't a character, fortification or LoW had appeared in a top 4 finishing ork list.
But then, of course, GW nerfed everything somewhat viable into the ground, cranked the powercreep to eleven and orks are now reduced to spamming the same ten datasheetes again. Good game.
First of all, the real workhorse in the 9th ed sisters book, from my perspective, are the Blessings of the Faithful. They aren't connected to rank when you use them in matched play, which to me is a bit of a missed opportunity- these upgrades are similar to the "Chapter Master" type of upgrade that most 9th ed dexes have, and I feel that they should be treated in the same way: luckily, in Crusade, they are. You have to purchase them with requisition points, but you can only do it when the character is achieving the Heroic or Legendary Rank. What this does is create models that we can use to represent Canoness Commanders, Cannoness Preceptors and Cannones Superia (Unless you're OoOML, because they're stuck with Junith). Having access to these types of high ranking characters is critical to building an identity for a custom order.
So your custom order can't have one to start with? What's the logic there, they found the order and then sort out the leadership later?
Not RAW, but it's a super easy fix if you want to start with one. One of the things I think a Big Book of Crusade should include would be a way to add units that already have experience to a roster. These rules would need to be used with care- if you've got players who aren't story minded, there would be a lot of potential for abuse. Maybe they could go in a GM/ Moderator section.
The issue for most players though is that it just takes some of the fun out of the experience, because if you start with a character at heroic, it has no history.
A better solution would be that the order has a Canoness Superior when the game begins, but she isn't a part of the roster- she's off stage, because the mistress of an entire order really doesn't have time to join a 25 PL Crusade- much like named characters, you don't expect to see them on the field until Strike Force level, even if it is technically possible.
What happens, or can happen over the course of the story is that the character in your army grows to the point where they eclipse and outshine the off-roster Canoness Superior, eventually replacing her.
While not ALL Crusades are interested in Sainthood, pretty much EVERY Crusade will want their leaders to grow pure enough to be worthy of one of these blessings, whether you choose to link it to rank in your head-cannon or not.
Being a commander isn't a "blessing", and the fact that my order can't have Canoness Superia in the lore is silly.
It isn't that being a Commander is a blessing- it's that being a commander means that you've accumulated enough experience that you are capable of bestowing blessings. In the lore, every order DOES have a Cannoness Superior- there's just never been a way to represent one on the table until now. Junith Eurita IS the Cannoness Superior for OoOML, so unless she dies or retires, either in official fluff, or in your head-cannon, you're stuck with her. Any other order can have a Cannoness Superior that you create; Blessings of the Faithful, while not officially restricted to Cannoness Superia, Preceptor or Commander IS a good idea for something that someone with so much experience and power should have. It would meaningfully distinguish the character from a mere Cannoness of a given Mission, and it would bring the character more in-line with a hero like Junith, because you would also have to be at least Heroic, so there would be other Battle Honours too.
As is the fact that they have a different one every campaign... unless you use the same crusade army through multiple campaigns, which sucks for the people just starting it. Crusade is not balanced for an army with 51 Crusade Points vs an army with like, 3.
This is an interesting point. I think roster management is another piece that would be a good fit for the Big Book of Crusade. Essentially, you COULD, if you wanted to, build the roster for your whole Order, but assign pieces of it to particular campaigns. Would de-couple Supply Limit from your roster, and instead make Supply Limit represent the portion of your roster which you can bring to any given battle.
The idea is that if you have super experienced units with a ton of Crusade points from a previous campaign, those probably aren't the units that you use in a battle against a green force. They CAN be, but they don't have to be.
Another one of those easy fixes, but again, it would be even easier if there was a big book of Crusade that had the information spelled out- that way people could do it without it feeling like a house rule.
Your enthusiasm was almost enough to care about models that I really don't care about.
And again, fine... But don't write about the situation as if something isn't there just because YOU prefer not to use it- it's there, it's a powerful tool, and yes, when I say priests I'm including Dialogi and Dogmata because they are now priests; you're looking at 4 units here.
So if you want to go back to 3-7th ed Ministorum priests of the "All my friends are really angry" variety and tell me with a straight face that they're more flexible and dynamic than the 9th edition suite of priests with their choice of Hymns of Battle, Relics and WL traits... well I just don't know how you can justify it.
In the 4th edition book, pretty much any inquisitorial henchman could be fluffed as a priest, and pretty much any inquisitor and his retinue could be a priest and retinue. Want a priest armed with a flame thrower, inferno pistol, and power armor through the wealth of the Ecclesiarchy?
Sorry you can't have it. Not since 4th.
Again with the equipment. Look, I know that people with a wargame mindset love equipment, and think "If it's not equipment, it's not customization." But that's the issue, because now, being a priest doesn't just mean getting +1A on the charge- priests get to pick their powers, which they could not do in previous versions of the game. It always made them feel less Priestly to me regardless of what their load out was.
Priests may not be able able to carry as wide a variety of gear as they once could, but what makes them special now isn't what they carry, it's what they Preach- cuz you know, they aren't called Gear-Porters... They're called Priests.
And I don't remember the 4th sisters dex, because I played the Witch Hunter dex through 4th- I think the 4th sisters dex was the one where which miracle you used depended upon your unit type, and each unit only had one miracle they could perform. I also don't remember if there was in Imperial Agent or Inquisition dex in 4th or 5th.
But in the Witch Hunters dex, no, Inquisitorial Retinues could not include priests, though it was possible to field priests in the same army as Inquisitors because both units were part of the list. You took up to 3 priests as a single unit; they didn't deploy together and weren't required to maintain coherency, and other than load out, they were all identical.
Again though, I acknowledge that there are probably 4th or 5th ed books that make it possible, I'm just not familiar with them. Even so though, if the way to include them was to make an Inquisitorial retinue, I can just pull a Unit on this: "But what if my dudes don't like the inquisition? Why should I have to have and Inquisitor to play cool priests?" - see how that works both ways?
And to respond to the custom order that you created, what you're looking for is an Army of Faith from the Vigilus Alone book- it allows you to include guard, marine and sisters units in the same detachment without losing purity bonuses. You can include whichever guard units you want and they don't even need to be in a separate detachment... Though that option exists too if that better suits the character of "your dudes."
I would have to look more into this to have an opinion on it but it sounds pretty incredible. Regimental Doctrines, Miracle Dice, etc. all in one army sounds awesome.
I was in the middle of about 10 different things when I wrote the post, so I didn't go back and reread the Goonhammer review to double check, and I don't have the book yet because my store never stocked it. What happens is that they keep their army wide abilities (Acts of Faith, Doctrines etc) but they lose their subfaction trait- or rather it is replaced by a trait common to all members of the army of faith. The Flashpoint rules from WD have been providing Faith-based Crusade content for a couple months, and it fits smoothly with this design.
I took a look at the 4th ed BRB today before I sat down to write this- I think it was 4th- it had kill team and narrative campaign rules in it. The progression system was 6 battle honours- a d6 table for characters, bikes and infantry and vehicles. No limit on experience levels, but once you got to 6, you'd have every battle honour that existed, so there'd be no point in going further. And progression was linear- a level every 1k exp, so just as easy to get to blooded from green as it is to get to Heroic from Battle Hardened.
Worse, at level six? Every character in the game has the same six BH as every other character in the game. Absolute rubbish compared to what we have now.
Okay?
I mean I like 4th because it isn't really a progression system, and dislike crusade because it is basically *only* a progression system...
...And you tell me 4th's progression system is bad?
No gak it's bad, they put the campaign section focus on actually running a campaign, and not on the 51 different ways you can turn an enemy inside out in one turn if they haven't progressed as far as you yet.
I don't think the fact that my character has the Reverse Wedgie battle honor, the Rod of Lordly Might Crusade Relic, the Ugly Stick weapon upgrade, and the Really Angry Really Alot battle honor makes it more narrative than not.
Progression isn't narrative, and a balanced progression system isn't bad narrative.
Look, in D&D, a =5 Holy Avenger isn't narrative either- it's what you did to get the Holy Avenger, and what you do with it once you have it that is the narrative.
What did you do to get the Reverse Wedgie BH? Why was the Rod of Lordly might bestowed upon character A rather than character B? Who upgraded the Weapon with the Ugly Stick mod, and what made them want to do that for you? And just why is that particular character so angry when the others are not? THAT is the narrative, and without the rules for the actual objects, the narrative would have no end point. I mean, sure, you could say "This priest, who is part of that Inquisitors Retinue is special because he has an Inferno pistol, so since I want that to be the story, I guess I won't buy it with points and equip it until after my priest does something that suits the story... Of course, there's nothing different about this priest than any other (except load out) there's nothing different about this Inferno pistol than any other Inferno pistol (except that it belongs to this particular priest) and there's also no rules for how the priest gets this item, because XP is earned by the army, not units."
But I genuinely don't care much for the current Sororitas faction rules. They just don't do it for me. At least back then your army list could reflect your fluff a bit more,
No, you absolutely couldn't.
Tell me how you made a Bloody Rose Army different from a Sacred Rose Army before 8th.
Your ONLY options were unit choice (ie. I'm Bloody Rose so I'll include Hand to Hand Units) or load-out on characters (She's a bBloody Rose Canoness, so eviscerator?).
Guess what? Both of THOSE options still exist. But now we have additional options too.
Sorry dude, but we already know what D's going to say:
"But, really, how many of those options did you actually take in the end?" or words to that effect, when really all he has is... well... this.
I'm not gonna defend weapons being limited to what's in the box. However there is definitely an element of "how many did you actually take". I'd argue Warlord Traits and Relics cover a lot of these elements. Otherwise the peak of customization is every Marine Captain getting Artificer Armor and every Chaos Lord gets the Sigil of Corruption instead of that useless ass 5++.
No, nobody saved 10 points by choosing the worse one.
Now there is something to be said for just straight up more units and factions being available. But that never had to be at the cost of unit customizeability.
That's more like how 2nd edition felt.
Again, I don't mind unit options if WYSIWIG isn't enforced to the max.
But if you can have only one artificier armour and only one +4 or +3 inv. then when you take a second lord, giving him the next best thing starts to make sense.
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.
You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.
You miss the point. Daedelus lauds internal balance, but overlooks obvious examples where it doesn't play out to expectation.
As for past editions, the oft-repeated mantra of the past was Boyz before Toyz. Boyz were good. This had the side benefit of making the army manifest "on-theme".
I have read the past few pages of this thread in one go, and one thing that is clear as day after reading this, is that people have very different views on what the "game" word even means.
1) For some, the game is core rules - the potential of the "engine" of the game to represent various concepts expected from a wargame, or recently, a war themed game. If those have depth, then the whole game potentially has depth.
2) For some, the game is the relationship between factions and if this is bad, then the whole game is bad, if it's good, then the whole game is good.
3) For some, the game is listbuilding, and if there are plenty of options here, the game is better than the version with less options. But there is a catch here, directly related to the next point.
4) For some, the game is "the meta" - the real life experience of the game how it is being played in their community. And this is the point that is both most varied and least varied at the same time. By that I mean that the most common context here is a cut-throat tournament prep or random pick-up, which invalidates most options that exist under point 3. and make or destroy the experience in the context of point 2. This also makes the point 1. matter very little, because the core rules are just a technical way the problems with all other points manifest themselves.
But, this point is also varied the most, because the problems with points 2. and 3. disappear almost completely and point 1. gets emphasised the most, when 4. is a laid back, likeminded, truly friendly (as in "cooperative preparation for adversarial gameplay") environment. Suddenly, all of the customisation options become available and there are no trap options, because exactly the same as in historical wargames community, army construction is scenario driven, not competitively driven and you are free to enact whatever encounter you fancy.
And because those four points are being "mix and matched" there is never any sort of agreement in such threads.
As to Crusade being the best the game was from narrative context - this is not true, not true at all, because there were Forgeworld campaigns before. But because of point 4., the only way "Doom of Mymeara" existed for most of the folks were Warp Spider Spam through Pale Courts cutom craftworld rules. But the same book also gave the opportunity to some of the players to either play with or play against Eldar Corsairs, or field all sorts of fluffy alternative Craftworlds. Anphelion Project was another great book, with a very good campaign, built upon all those fluffy, wargame rules like blasts, facings etc. But those books could as well never existed in the pick-up, tournament prep all the time communities.
That said, after switching to alternative ruleset for the last few years, I must say, that even in peaks of narrative capabilities of 40K during 2nd and 7th eds, 40K is a piss poor game all around when it comes to conveying any sort of a trully compelling wargame feel, be it deeply narrative or merely pretextual for a "gamey game", and even worse at portraying it's own setting, because of fundamental limitations of overly lethal IGOUGO. This, combined with trap purchase choices in "the meta" context is the root cause for so much toxicity accompanying this game for all 30 years of it's existence - for great many players, the game does not provide the feel one expects when preparing for the game. I remember the same discussions happening here during 7th, how this was the worst edition ever and how X editions ago all things were so much better and now it's also the same 7th which is being praised as so much better than "9th ed gak show" and meeting the same fierce opposition as in those discussions of the past.
So, I add one last point to the list:
5) for me, the most constant trait, that defines what "game" means in the context of 40k, is toxic discontent in the community and the Stockholm syndrome of "the only game in town".
There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.
As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.
You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.
You miss the point. Daedelus lauds internal balance, but overlooks obvious examples where it doesn't play out to expectation.
As for past editions, the oft-repeated mantra of the past was Boyz before Toyz. Boyz were good. This had the side benefit of making the army manifest "on-theme".
nou wrote: I remember the same discussions happening here during 7th, how this was the worst edition ever and how X editions ago all things were so much better and now it's also the same 7th which is being praised as so much better than "9th ed gak show" and meeting the same fierce opposition as in those discussions of the past.
So, I add one last point to the list:
5) for me, the most constant trait, that defines what "game" means in the context of 40k, is toxic discontent in the community and the Stockholm syndrome of "the only game in town".
Uhhh, probably nobody is nostalgic for 7th. Or if they are, they're only doing so with massive caveats or focusing on specific mechanics, such as 7th being the last edition using the AV system. I think your claim in that regard is extremely refutable.
"Toxic levels of discontent" will always exist. It's a big game with a massive fanbase. (it also depends on where you define the level of "toxic".)
"the only game in town" it is not. HOWEVER, it's one of the very few games that:
A: You can get a pick up game practically anywhere.
B: The lore/setting is beloved in a way that is different than alternative games such as Infiinity or Warmahordes. I'd argue that there's a stronger emotional attachment to 40K.
This results in an increased level of passion and desire for the overall 40K experience to be "good", however you define it. You've got an incredibly passionate community with a high degree of desire for the near-universal PUG to hit a level of quality of experience.
auticus wrote: I was heavily into the tournament scene at that point so my experience will be shaded by that, but you didn't see 90% of the options in the chaos 3.5 book. It was typically one of two lists that was taken: the iron warriors list for its extra heavy support choice, and the slaanesh list.
Ok sure but that doesn't defeat the initial point that the book *had* an amazing amount of customizability and options. The "feel" was excellent. Maybe the balance was off - but these days we don't have balance or "feel."
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gadzilla666 wrote: Those Chaos options from 3.5 weren't just for Chaos Lords, they were for all characters, which included all Aspiring Champions. And for +10 PPM, you could make any Chosen an Aspiring Champion. So, you could have an entire squad that could select from that list. Now look at them.
Can't make them too fun/characterful next to loyalist marines, that undermines the power strategy/marketing.
You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.
The thing stopping people is that Boyz are wastes of points on the table. Back in 3e I definitely ran more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz.
Maybe FoCs are more flexible, but the internal and external balance of the ork codex is terrible, contrary to what you and Daed are saying.
Well that's pretty broad don't you think? What about those units that used to go toe-to-toe with Marines and are now getting crumped?
What of them? Their players will figure out (again) how to beat the SMs.
I simply don't buy the claim that non-SM factions aren't good. RT - now, there's always been plenty of decent things you can play that aren't SM.
Well that's pretty broad don't you think? What about those units that used to go toe-to-toe with Marines and are now getting crumped?
What of them? Their players will figure out (again) how to beat the SMs.
I simply don't buy the claim that non-SM factions aren't good. RT - now, there's always been plenty of decent things you can play that aren't SM.
You must have missed a good portion of the conversation to type this.
Daedalus81 wrote: This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think.
Oh, so, to put it another way: Wait and see?
Daedalus81 wrote: That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.
Yeah, but he didn't suggest that. Once again someone comes up with a problem, and your response - because it's always your response - is "Well we can't do X because Y happened in the past.".
No one has said anything about a "pivot tool". That hasn't been in use since 2nd Ed, and we didn't have tanks firing through themsleves and via track links problems in 3rd through 7th.
Wait and see in the same manner that the only thing different about GW is that they added a Facebook page, right?
Shooting from antennas isn't actually a problem. It used to be. People desire weapon arcs and all that - that's fine, but it isn't an easily balanced concept, which is puzzling when people here all seem to be very concerned about balance issues.
Shooting from antennas sounds more like a player problem than a rules one.
And I guess I've been waiting and seeing since october 2017. That sounds like a reasonable amount of time don't you think?
nou wrote: I have read the past few pages of this thread in one go, and one thing that is clear as day after reading this, is that people have very different views on what the "game" word even means.
1) For some, the game is core rules - the potential of the "engine" of the game to represent various concepts expected from a wargame, or recently, a war themed game. If those have depth, then the whole game potentially has depth.
2) For some, the game is the relationship between factions and if this is bad, then the whole game is bad, if it's good, then the whole game is good.
3) For some, the game is listbuilding, and if there are plenty of options here, the game is better than the version with less options. But there is a catch here, directly related to the next point.
4) For some, the game is "the meta" - the real life experience of the game how it is being played in their community. And this is the point that is both most varied and least varied at the same time. By that I mean that the most common context here is a cut-throat tournament prep or random pick-up, which invalidates most options that exist under point 3. and make or destroy the experience in the context of point 2. This also makes the point 1. matter very little, because the core rules are just a technical way the problems with all other points manifest themselves.
But, this point is also varied the most, because the problems with points 2. and 3. disappear almost completely and point 1. gets emphasised the most, when 4. is a laid back, likeminded, truly friendly (as in "cooperative preparation for adversarial gameplay") environment. Suddenly, all of the customisation options become available and there are no trap options, because exactly the same as in historical wargames community, army construction is scenario driven, not competitively driven and you are free to enact whatever encounter you fancy.
And because those four points are being "mix and matched" there is never any sort of agreement in such threads.
As to Crusade being the best the game was from narrative context - this is not true, not true at all, because there were Forgeworld campaigns before. But because of point 4., the only way "Doom of Mymeara" existed for most of the folks were Warp Spider Spam through Pale Courts cutom craftworld rules. But the same book also gave the opportunity to some of the players to either play with or play against Eldar Corsairs, or field all sorts of fluffy alternative Craftworlds. Anphelion Project was another great book, with a very good campaign, built upon all those fluffy, wargame rules like blasts, facings etc. But those books could as well never existed in the pick-up, tournament prep all the time communities.
That said, after switching to alternative ruleset for the last few years, I must say, that even in peaks of narrative capabilities of 40K during 2nd and 7th eds, 40K is a piss poor game all around when it comes to conveying any sort of a trully compelling wargame feel, be it deeply narrative or merely pretextual for a "gamey game", and even worse at portraying it's own setting, because of fundamental limitations of overly lethal IGOUGO. This, combined with trap purchase choices in "the meta" context is the root cause for so much toxicity accompanying this game for all 30 years of it's existence - for great many players, the game does not provide the feel one expects when preparing for the game. I remember the same discussions happening here during 7th, how this was the worst edition ever and how X editions ago all things were so much better and now it's also the same 7th which is being praised as so much better than "9th ed gak show" and meeting the same fierce opposition as in those discussions of the past.
So, I add one last point to the list:
5) for me, the most constant trait, that defines what "game" means in the context of 40k, is toxic discontent in the community and the Stockholm syndrome of "the only game in town".
A very insightful post, thanks for that!
A wargame is a toolbox for doing many battle-game-related things from historical refights to what-if scenarios and straight competitive gaming, and as such, you're right - there are many interpretations. At best, we can judge the game against two things:
1) Your expectations for effective (also "fun") participation in a given game, rules edition or style of play within your local gaming ecosystem; and
2) The author's design intentions which, given the sheer range of things you can do with a game ruleset, really need to be written down explicitly in every game.
I'd add a couple of points here.
a) Implicit in point 2 above is that THE GAME RULES ARE NOT NEUTRAL. At a minimum, they will promote styles of play or certain units. At times, different facets of gameplay will conflict: unlike a battle, everyone "knows" when a game ends, so "last turn objective rush" is a thing, for example. In order to produce a game that looks more like some sort of battle, GW introduced scoring throughout the match which is at least as unrealistic.
A competitive ruleset may undergo iterative pressure to promote and reward system mastery (as expressed in list-building and gameplay), and rules may be added to clarify rules-algorithm failures, edge cases and poor wording - although such rules clarifications benefit any game ruleset. Combinations of units or stratagems may become explicitly rewarded; trap options are also a feature of such a system (but see b) below). Such battles, like the traditional matched play, depend on external balance, and the end of the game is the conclusion of the fight. Next game, your guys start afresh.
However, nor are the rules a physics engine, as you might see in a computer milsim. Simulationist games may tend towards rules exceptions based on realism (or rather "realism" that matches fictional lore). The emphasis may be more on in-game balance: a terrible unit in the source material will remain a terrible unit, but may be costed appropriately or left to the player to decide how to use them in a historical refight. Your survivors from a game may form the starting units for the next game - making game rules where even the winner has three guys left standing potentially unsuitable for your campaign plans.
As you say, there are multiple axes on which a game may be judged. Not every game can meet every player's expectations (or existing army). The roleplayers got this right, and a lot of games sell themselves on genre-emulating mechanics, along with recognised genre keywords and hooks. There's at least some understanding in the design community that not every game can (or should even try to) be based on D&D 5th edition.
b) Which leads on to the second point. GWAS A RULES PUBLISHER AND MINIATURES MANUFACTURER IS ALSO NOT NEUTRAL. Tabletop miniatures games already skew away from many aspects of "real" warfare - the ability to freely choose and tailor your units, knowledge of what the enemy has and where it is. Really though, the most fundamental decision in a miniatures wargame is WHAT TO BUY, BUILD AND PAINT. Or more often, what you have already bought, built and painted, and what you need to add to stay current. That may be driven by "historical" considerations, or for rules performance on the tabletop. I know a lot of my minis purchases are driven by what I like the look of, regardless of actual utility in the game it was produced for. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone there, but I'm lucky to play with some really chilled gamers.
Miniatures manufacturers are in a tight spot here - nobody wants to make a mini that won't sell because of bad rules, doubly so if you wrote the rules yourself. Trap options (bad units or universally weak model builds) are a problem in miniatures games (at least without a historical backdrop) because there is a real-world set of costs (time, money, opportunity cost) associated with each unit, but they are very common - more through bad design than providing an opportunity to show system mastery. GW at least attempts to shake up the meta consciously - it can hardly be unaware that past wholesale rules changes that invalidate or break entire armies do nothing for their bottom line.
But yeah - there are so many good games out there that will do exactly what YOU want them to. 40k can't be everything to every gamer.
And yet Battletech is an rpg, massed battle game, classic board game, scenario / historical game, and campaign game. How you might ask?
It's because the base rules serve as the baseline for the game and how its played. They don't try to steer you one way or the other. No one single way of playing dominates the discussion or intent in those base interactions. Other books and supplements actually provide the players OPTIONS in how the game is played rather then simply being a mechanism to sell power / dlc.
Why can't GW adapt an rpg book as an addendum to the 40k rules with extra mechanics and wargear? Where are my hidden unit rules, recon rules, city fighting and dog fighting rules?
By the time GW gets to the point where those are possibilities the entire line of codexes are thrown out, the base rules get changed and all of those options are now invalidated. 7th edition had cool additions and OPTIONS that while imperfect did give you the opportunity for more varied experiences. Cities of death, apocalypse, death from the skies (yes it sucked), and the forgeworld campaign books were all another tool in the tool bag. No longer do we have any of those options.
Insectum7 wrote: Yet I expect a Nob to handily be able to tear a Marine limb from limb.
Can't imagine why, considering that's never especially been the case in the tabletop or the fluff most of the time but sure, a Nob will beat your average Marine in hand to hand most of the time. And almost all of the time will be lit up like the fourth of July by the far more disciplined shooting of the Marines.
Also, source for Nobs being "dumber than a sack of hammers".
Because all Orks save Meks and some Warbosses are dumber than a sack of hammers. Orks are really stupid. Sometimes portrayed with a certain low cunning, but stupid the majority of the time. Are you going to argue that Nobz are generally portrayed with as much intelligence on the battlefield as Marines?
If it were up to me they would be strictly inferior to Marines too but they're the only one on the list that I think might actually be portrayed as superior in general.
Are you aware that wars aren't fought by infantry lining up and going at it, phalanx-style? I can't believe that people are actually using this as some sort of justification. Explain to me why you feel forced to follow this logic in a world where machine guns, artillery, force concentration, carpet bombing and friggin nuclear warheads are readily available.
They usually are in 40k my friend.
And more to the point, you\re being disingenuous. "Wars aren't fought by line infantry lining up and going at it phalanx-style" might be true, but that doesn't imply that Marines don't have to go up against the troops of other armies on-foot regularly. Indeed, it's how they are most often depicted deploying and fighting. If Space Marines are strictly inferior to the line infantry of other factions, if a single Necron Warrior to use your favorite example to whine about was on par with or superior to a Marine, then how could the Marines function? How would they be expected to carry out an op against the Necrons when the most basic troop in a Tomb World is on par or better? How would a relatively small amount of Marines have been able to combat per the text thousands of Necrons in the World Engine over the course of the battle and then destroy it? If this so-called elite group of soldiers isn't actually elite, if the chaff numbering in billions is on par with or better than them, how are they expected to fight infantry battles against them?
They couldn't, yet they do. Marines have not been portrayed as weak as you'd like them to be for a long time, if they ever were. I'm sorry this upsets you.
If it were up to me they would be strictly inferior to Marines too
Black Library already churns out tons and tons of Marines-are-the-best-at-everything media for you to peruse. We don't need the tabletop game to lean further in that direction. It's bland game design, it's boring to play, it's annoying when you can't fit many units into 2K, and it makes for constant oneupmanship because Grey Knights have to be even best-er at everything and then Custodes have to be best-er still.
Void__Dragon wrote: "Wars aren't fought by line infantry lining up and going at it phalanx-style" might be true, but that doesn't imply that Marines don't have to go up against the troops of other armies on-foot regularly. Indeed, it's how they are most often depicted deploying and fighting. If Space Marines are strictly inferior to the line infantry of other factions, if a single Necron Warrior to use your favorite example to whine about was on par with or superior to a Marine, then how could the Marines function? How would they be expected to carry out an op against the Necrons when the most basic troop in a Tomb World is on par or better?
They wouldn't arrange battles that consist entirely of attrition contests. They'd employ hit-and-run, defeat in detail, use the environment to their advantage, and leverage strategic assets as force multipliers. Pre-industrial societies understood this (see: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest), it's not exactly rocket science.
They've got bombardment cannons, they've got nukes, they've got virus bombs, they're physically and operationally faster than Necrons (that alone is a huge advantage), they have a whole bunch of dirty tricks on top of objectives that don't generally require killing every single Necron on a tomb world in single combat mano-a-mano. You're treating them like Orks, as if the only way they can fight is to just line up and slug it out.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not to mention pointing to specific fluff examples and saying 'well if my guys aren't amazing, how could they do this?' is rather silly. Power levels in the fluff are all over the place- sometimes Marines are unstoppable ubermensch, and sometimes a whole company of Lamenters gets killed to a man by 'Nids in thirty minutes (Fall of Malvolion), or a centuries-old Dreadnought dies to a literally-born-yesterday Carnifex (Anphelion Project), or a battle-hardened Chaos Marine gets matched in a swordfight with a commissar and then obliterated by a Guardsman with a meltagun (Cain).
Someone has to set a ground truth power level for the sake of a tabletop game, but it doesn't have to strictly inversely correlate to their numbers in the background, and it's best if the most-played army is archetypical rather than all the way at one extreme.
The thing stopping people is that Boyz are wastes of points on the table. Back in 3e I definitely ran more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz.
Maybe FoCs are more flexible, but the internal and external balance of the ork codex is terrible, contrary to what you and Daed are saying.
Currently internal balance for orks it's the best it's ever been.
I also used to run more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz in 3rd. Know why? Because like 10ish units in a codex with 30ish datasheets were basically boyz and most of the toys were so cheap that even maxing out FAs and HSs left you with tons of points left. Besides, our vehicles were paper things while most of the armies couldn't kill tons of infantries from distance. Now it's the opposite, the infantries are definitely too squishy to rely on them in huge numbers and we have tons and tons of good alternatives in the codex.
I don't even think boyz were better in older editions, and I think they're still ok. Snaggaboyz are definitely ok. It's just we didn't have much else in the past. Now we do.
The thing stopping people is that Boyz are wastes of points on the table. Back in 3e I definitely ran more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz.
Maybe FoCs are more flexible, but the internal and external balance of the ork codex is terrible, contrary to what you and Daed are saying.
Currently internal balance for orks it's the best it's ever been.
I also used to run more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz in 3rd. Know why? Because like 10ish units in a codex with 30ish datasheets were basically boyz and most of the toys were so cheap that even maxing out FAs and HSs left you with tons of points left. Besides, our vehicles were paper things while most of the armies couldn't kill tons of infantries from distance. Now it's the opposite, the infantries are definitely too squishy to rely on them in huge numbers and we have tons and tons of good alternatives in the codex.
I don't even think boyz were better in older editions, and I think they're still ok. Snaggaboyz are definitely ok. It's just we didn't have much else in the past. Now we do.
erm, sorry what?
Kommandos are what 2-3 ppm more expensive boys that just get everything ontop of that beyond shootas? How is that balanced?
Same with the buggies some you will never see realistically (especially after getting nerfed to death, others you see all the time?)
How is that internally balanced?
And no snaggaboys are not good, they look paltry next to 1W csm and these are also paltry lacking troop choices initself.
I said it's more balanced than older editions, when you had like 10 viable units in the entire codex. Now it's many more than that. We've already seen more than half the codex in lists that placed at tournaments, which is totally new for orks.
For example both boyz and kommandos are played, while gretchins and snaggaboys also see the tables, so are pretty much all the buggies except currently the squig ones. So 4 out of 5, with the 5th that did see a lot of play during the edition.
Kommandos are much better than boyz, of course. So are many other specialists from other codexes compared to their basic troops. But they don't have the trukk boyz option, which is how boyz are mostly played and a decent option to use anyway. In the past when we used to bring lots of boyz we didn't do it because they were good, but because anything else was trash.
Insectum7 wrote: Yet I expect a Nob to handily be able to tear a Marine limb from limb.
Can't imagine why, considering that's never especially been the case in the tabletop . . .
20+ years of stat supremacy over a Marine in the CC department. My references (3rd, 5th, 8th) give Nobs double the wounds, and triple the attacks over a basic Marine. Pretty straightforward.
Also, source for Nobs being "dumber than a sack of hammers".
Because all Orks save Meks and some Warbosses are dumber than a sack of hammers. Orks are really stupid. Sometimes portrayed with a certain low cunning, but stupid the majority of the time. Are you going to argue that Nobz are generally portrayed with as much intelligence on the battlefield as Marines?
"Not equal to a Marine in intelligence" does not mean "dumb as a sack of hammers". Absolutely Marines are, on the whole, smarter. But there are numerous warnings about not understimating an Orks intelligence. They have language, use tools, form abstract thoughts, and can even plan battles and campaigns. Their gods are both brutal and cunning, after all.
If it were up to me they would be strictly inferior to Marines too . . .
Why? Why would this be so, especially if they are the elite of the Tyranid infantry and known for being superior to a Genestealer, and Genestealers are already famed for their abilities.
Are you aware that wars aren't fought by infantry lining up and going at it, phalanx-style? I can't believe that people are actually using this as some sort of justification. Explain to me why you feel forced to follow this logic in a world where machine guns, artillery, force concentration, carpet bombing and friggin nuclear warheads are readily available.
They usually are in 40k my friend.
And more to the point, you\re being disingenuous. "Wars aren't fought by line infantry lining up and going at it phalanx-style" might be true, but that doesn't imply that Marines don't have to go up against the troops of other armies on-foot regularly. Indeed, it's how they are most often depicted deploying and fighting. If Space Marines are strictly inferior to the line infantry of other factions, if a single Necron Warrior to use your favorite example to whine about was on par with or superior to a Marine, then how could the Marines function? How would they be expected to carry out an op against the Necrons when the most basic troop in a Tomb World is on par or better? How would a relatively small amount of Marines have been able to combat per the text thousands of Necrons in the World Engine over the course of the battle and then destroy it? If this so-called elite group of soldiers isn't actually elite, if the chaff numbering in billions is on par with or better than them, how are they expected to fight infantry battles against them?
They couldn't, yet they do. Marines have not been portrayed as weak as you'd like them to be for a long time, if they ever were. I'm sorry this upsets you.
Possibly your assessment of Ork intelligence applies to the above post.
How could near peer adversaries possibly see a battle in which one side emerges victorious? Is it just in the thickness of armor, range of the weapons and availability of troops? Or perhaps there are other factors such as strategy, tactics, morale, discipline, leadership, operational maneuverability, etc. at play? Are you aware of these things? Are you aware that Space Marines are the in-universe masters of such things? Why would Space Marines engage with a more elite foe on equal footing? Why would Space Marines allow greater numbers of near peer adversaries engage them if they could avoid it?
Why does a Space Marine have to be able to defeat a Nob in CC if a better solution would be to just toss a Krak grenade at it? If you're so keen on pointing out that Space Marines are smarter than Orks, why aren't you looking for more focus on that rather than the prolific huur-duur stat-inflation we have now.
In the past, Space Marines had to punch the shooty things and shoot the punchy things. If they can just punch the punchy things and shoot the shooty things, where tf is the intelligence to that, eh?
The thing stopping people is that Boyz are wastes of points on the table. Back in 3e I definitely ran more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz.
Maybe FoCs are more flexible, but the internal and external balance of the ork codex is terrible, contrary to what you and Daed are saying.
Currently internal balance for orks it's the best it's ever been.
I appreciate that it's possible that more units are deemed useable in the current book (although there might be some that dispute it, I am not an expert of Orks), however there have been numerous threads where it's been noted that Boyz suck/are not competetive/etc. An Ork codex where Boyz are not viable does not seem to be a successfully "on theme" book to me.
Sledgehammer wrote: Why can't GW adapt an rpg book as an addendum to the 40k rules with extra mechanics and wargear? Where are my hidden unit rules, recon rules, city fighting and dog fighting rules?
Quite a few of those things have appeared as supplements in the past. I guess they don't sell enough for GW to warrant continuous support.
I have heard many a GW manager state that outside of the core rules and tournament required books, that the other material struggles to move much at all overall so yeah - hard to get those type of rules when the community largely is not interested in them or won't buy in to them at the very least.
Sledgehammer wrote: Why can't GW adapt an rpg book as an addendum to the 40k rules with extra mechanics and wargear? Where are my hidden unit rules, recon rules, city fighting and dog fighting rules?
Quite a few of those things have appeared as supplements in the past. I guess they don't sell enough for GW to warrant continuous support.
Sounds like Kill Team and Aeronautica, respectively.
auticus wrote: I have heard many a GW manager state that outside of the core rules and tournament required books, that the other material struggles to move much at all overall so yeah - hard to get those type of rules when the community largely is not interested in them or won't buy in to them at the very least.
Or perhaps the communities that WOULD be interested are looking for a better product before spending money.
Why buy something that is lower quality than what I could scribble on a napkin?
Void__Dragon wrote: And more to the point, you\re being disingenuous. "Wars aren't fought by line infantry lining up and going at it phalanx-style" might be true, but that doesn't imply that Marines don't have to go up against the troops of other armies on-foot regularly. Indeed, it's how they are most often depicted deploying and fighting. If Space Marines are strictly inferior to the line infantry of other factions, if a single Necron Warrior to use your favorite example to whine about was on par with or superior to a Marine, then how could the Marines function? How would they be expected to carry out an op against the Necrons when the most basic troop in a Tomb World is on par or better? How would a relatively small amount of Marines have been able to combat per the text thousands of Necrons in the World Engine over the course of the battle and then destroy it? If this so-called elite group of soldiers isn't actually elite, if the chaff numbering in billions is on par with or better than them, how are they expected to fight infantry battles against them?
They couldn't, yet they do. Marines have not been portrayed as weak as you'd like them to be for a long time, if they ever were. I'm sorry this upsets you.
Stop being disingenuous. Nobody's saying that Astartes should be portrayed as being less useful of a warrior than an individual Necron - what they're saying is that Necron Warriors should be on par or slightly higher in terms of durability than a marine.
Necron Warriors shouldn't be chaff where Marines can be outnumbered a hundred to one or more and come out on top in a straight up fight. Could Marines fight their way through and blow up a Necron tomb before exfiltrating or getting retrieved via teleport, effectively defeating many times their number? Sure.
If the fluff is disagreeing with what I'm stating here, then it's stupid fething fluff.
Hecaton wrote: Could Marines fight their way through and blow up a Necron tomb before exfiltrating or getting retrieved via teleport, effectively defeating many times their number? Sure.
Worth pointing out that the early Necron fluff, where Deathwatch are often sent to deal with them, has a lot of this stuff. The Marines use speed, surprise, and violence of action to get in, get it done, and get out before the Necrons can really bring their force to bear. When the Necrons do start to fight back, it's scary, because they're extremely hard to kill and have weapons that are very lethal to even Marines, and then it's a fighting retreat to get out as the tomb awakens around them.
That kind of fluff shows off Marines as elite veterans- well-coordinated, fast, intelligent, quick to react to changing threats, keeping their cool- and more importantly their role within the Imperium and why the small size of each chapter can still make a difference. If you just need a battle of attrition against hordes of mooks, that's the Guard's specialty.
The thing stopping people is that Boyz are wastes of points on the table. Back in 3e I definitely ran more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz.
Maybe FoCs are more flexible, but the internal and external balance of the ork codex is terrible, contrary to what you and Daed are saying.
Currently internal balance for orks it's the best it's ever been.
I appreciate that it's possible that more units are deemed useable in the current book (although there might be some that dispute it, I am not an expert of Orks), however there have been numerous threads where it's been noted that Boyz suck/are not competetive/etc. An Ork codex where Boyz are not viable does not seem to be a successfully "on theme" book to me.
The thing is, boyz were one of the main reasons why internal balance sucked in past iterations of orks.
The green tide archetype and "boyz before toyz" which everyone is so fond of is nothing but the result of vast parts of the codex being inferior to boyz and thus not competitive.
GW has cranked down the power level too much on boyz and ruined them, but there is no way you can claim that the current codex where kommadoz, MANz, beast snaggas, tank bustas, storm boyz, squighogs, warbikes, kill rigs, snazzwagons, scrap jets, SJD, mek guns, dakka jets, wazbomms, battlewagons, trukks and trukkboyzs see regular top competitive play has worse or equal internal balance to the previous ones where anything but boyz, gretchin, mek guns and their support characters was considered non-competitive.
The thing is, boyz were one of the main reasons why internal balance sucked in past iterations of orks.
The green tide archetype and "boyz before toyz" which everyone is so fond of is nothing but the result of vast parts of the codex being inferior to boyz and thus not competitive.
GW has cranked down the power level too much on boyz and ruined them, but there is no way you can claim that the current codex where kommadoz, MANz, beast snaggas, tank bustas, storm boyz, squighogs, warbikes, kill rigs, snazzwagons, scrap jets, SJD, mek guns, dakka jets, wazbomms, battlewagons, trukks and trukkboyzs see regular top competitive play has worse or equal internal balance to the previous ones where anything but boyz, gretchin, mek guns and their support characters was considered non-competitive.
Yep.
Also Deffkoptas, Kustom Boosta Blasta, Nob on Squig, Wartrike, Big mek with KFF, Big mek in Megarmour, Warboss, Warboss in Megarmour, Biker Boss, Warboss on Squigosaur, Snikrot, Ghazghkull and currently even the Wurrboy all are or have recently been part of lists that placed at top events. IIRC also min squads of lootas and burnaboyz did show up in some footslogging based list at some point, so did Zagstruck. Kanz and Dreads are in their best place since ages, one squad of gretchins is still a legit option to consider, etc...
Nope. Look at the one ork player who did ok in Seattle - it was all about making bomb squigs work. That's not good internal balance.
Why not? It's like claiming that a list that relies on assault or shooting doesn't have any internal balance, even if there's a significant amount of variety in it, in terms on units. Do you know what doesn't have good internal balance? Top 8th goffs greentide list with Ghaz, 2-3 additional characters, 90-120 boyz and whatever fits with the few remaining points.
Wait is this one of those , it works when you make the list for your opponent, play narrative and on top of that your opponent isn't trying to win or playing a list that more or less plays soliter?
Karol wrote: But if someone likes ghaz and footslogging boys they will not see as bad balance, but as the codex being the way it should be.
Spamming boyz to succeed is bad internal balance. The issue just has been unaddressed for so long that people think it is how orks should work. It's not Codex: Boyz tough, it's Codex: Orks. A competitive ork army should want to run 2-3 units of boyz, not more, not less.
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Karol wrote: If it works, then why isn't it winning events?
Wait is this one of those , it works when you make the list for your opponent, play narrative and on top of that your opponent isn't trying to win or playing a list that more or less plays soliter?
1. internal balance is not related to winning events, ork external balance is horrible 2. it's currently the most played competitive archetype 3. Liam Hacket won an event with such a list in January. 4. You're being a dick
I don't think so. I also prefer 9th edition to 8th edition.
That said, I will concede that you can have a non-competitive army which makes playing decidedly less fun.
I play every couple of weeks and my win ratio is about 50% across my four armies, but my firstborn Ultramarines always lose. I'm actually thinking of retiring that army from play to focus on my other armies.
My Chaos Knights, TSons and GK armies are all fun to play. I've played Orks twice in 9th - lost with TSons and won with GK, so I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with Orks or the game in general.
That kind of fluff shows off Marines as elite veterans- well-coordinated, fast, intelligent, quick to react to changing threats, keeping their cool- and more importantly their role within the Imperium and why the small size of each chapter can still make a difference. If you just need a battle of attrition against hordes of mooks, that's the Guard's specialty.
Which is very much how Marines played in Epic: Armageddon, as I learned to my cost several times. They were all about fast movement, hitting hard and moving on before the other side could mass against them. Play them like a more-elite Guard army and they just die.
I'm not sure that style of play is even possible using 28mm armies on a 6x4 foot board.
Karol wrote: But if someone likes ghaz and footslogging boys they will not see as bad balance, but as the codex being the way it should be.
Spamming boyz to succeed is bad internal balance.
Or it's just one of several paths to victory. I mean, while we've seen some examples of it working, we've also seen massed buggy/flyers, defcoptas/speedwaahs, and now a guy winning with a bomb squig gimmick list....
But clearly it's not working well enough - else there wouldn't be all the sobbing about Drukari/Custodes/Harlies/Nids, & whatever's next.
There's also the fact that some people (many?) just like that style of ork army.
Oh yeah, and then there's us weirdos who'll pilot Grot armies.....
Jidmah wrote: It's not Codex: Boyz tough, it's Codex: Orks. A competitive ork army should want to run 2-3 units of boyz, not more, not less.
Why? Because the Great OZ/Jidmah has spoken?
I agree that boyz should be a viable enough unit that they're a consideration when list building. But after that it should be up to each player to decide what mix of units suits them. All boyz, no boyz, some mix in-between those extremes..... Fortunately the days of the 3e-7th FoC are behind us & the current detachment system allows us a choice.
Karol wrote: If it works, then why isn't it winning events?
Wait is this one of those , it works when you make the list for your opponent, play narrative and on top of that your opponent isn't trying to win or playing a list that more or less plays soliter?
1. internal balance is not related to winning events, ork external balance is horrible
2. it's currently the most played competitive archetype
3. Liam Hacket won an event with such a list in January.
4. You're being a dick
On #s 2 & 3 - well, apparently from what you've written those people are doing it wrong....
So, what's your tourney winning list? How's it doing? Where can we see your record posted?
GW doesn't want to do a TSR. They'll do you a gangs game, or a fighting robot game, they'll even do you 40k variants so you can start playing with one £30 box of toys, but they won't do you 40k in 15mm, or 40k grand galactic strategy, or 40k where you can only use these particular minis.
One of the reasons I think things broke down between between FFG and GW is that FFG games were just better than GW games and they felt threatened. Chaos In The Old World and Forbidden Stars are far better games than anything GW has put out in years and GW knew it. It became especially evident to me when Wizkids got the license to reprint Fury Of Dracula but not Forbidden Stars, Disc Wars, CitOW or Bloodbowl Team Manager
. Took me 3-4 years to get a "complete" army. In the meanwhile I played against people my age, proxying regularly. I see no shame in that. I don't think a kid that age should be a regular at stores playing 
