H.B.M.C. wrote: I once saw a unit of 4 Firewarriors kill an Avatar in melee in 3rd Ed.
They ain't no thang.
I did something like that once (think it was like 8 firewarriors). Also a daemon prince.
And then there was the time that a lone Vespid Strain Leader murdered a Space Marine Chapter Master and his bodyguard over the course of 4 turns in melee.
The named characters went from examples of how to create your own characters, to the protagonists of the setting that immediately NPC-ified whoever they were fighting.
EDIT: IMO the soul of 40k was the setting itself being the protagonist, with all these characters being dragged along by the weight of history. The setting revolved around its own inertia, not on the whims of specific characters that had models. The setting chewed up and spat out people with names, because they survived only at its convenience. Any story with a protagonist existed at the mercy of the setting, not the popularity of the character.
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it began around the time they retconned Eldrad's death after the 13th black crusade. They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then. Characters that were historical (Macharius) have disappeared. It's '12 seconds to midnight attendees only' now.
Now if you want a character to appear in a historical battle, you just have to pick from a growing range of semi-immortals. Rather than expanding the stories with historical characters.
Jarran Kell has died-died, as has Aun'va off the top of my head.
Aun'va was kind of a cheat-y death though. A Culexus Assassin killed them and the Tau have been faking them still being alive via holograms and overlays.
EDIT: IMO the soul of 40k was the setting itself being the protagonist, with all these characters being dragged along by the weight of history. The setting revolved around its own inertia, not on the whims of specific characters that had models. The setting chewed up and spat out people with names, because they survived only at its convenience. Any story with a protagonist existed at the mercy of the setting, not the popularity of the character.
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it began around the time they retconned Eldrad's death after the 13th black crusade. They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then. Characters that were historical (Macharius) have disappeared. It's '12 seconds to midnight attendees only' now.
Now if you want a character to appear in a historical battle, you just have to pick from a growing range of semi-immortals. Rather than expanding the stories with historical characters.
Couldn't agree more.
I don't know when this first started, though I'd have to cite 5th (much as I like it in other respects) as being a time when the rot really started to set in.
Apart from the botched introductions for Draigo et al., we also had examples like the Swarmlord being retconned into major battles, even though his presence only diminishes the story.
Aside:
Spoiler:
Something of an aside, but on the point of semi-immortals vs historical characters, I'm actually reminded of Magic the Gathering and its ever-increasing love of Planeswalkers. There was an article (I believe it related to Innistrad) which had some exerts from the book/lore for the setting. The first exert related to a pair of rival Necromancers specific to the setting (literally just them sending passive-aggressive letters to each other), and it was really good with both being well-characterised. Then we got to an exert relating to a Planeswalker with no connection whatsoever to the setting and immediately the quality of writing fell off a cliff. It just descended ever more into Mary Sue blunders around, effortlessly beating every obstacle with invincible Mary Sue powers.
I feel 40k is increasingly heading in that direction.
I wonder if there is a similar issue with many named characters in 40k feeling rather detached
So how does Horus Heresy figure into this? Its obviously a character driven narrative, which would make it a bit of the antithesis of what we believe 40k should be, yes? But thats ok, because thats what makes the 30k era distinct from the 41st millennium, because it was a period of greater hope and dynamic growth in the history of humanity, before the outcome of the Heresy resulted in stagnation - thats how I would look at it. Do we think that the 41st millennium is losing some of what makes the setting distinct from the 31st millennium via the heavy character focus?
Also, what about the likes of Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Ciaphas Cain, etc? I'll be upfront and say I've never read any of those books, but they were the "big names" in the setting back in the day, albeit ones that were missing from the tabletop. Has 40k actually always been somewhat character driven, but not necessarily by the characters found in the army lists and codecies? Is the issue maybe less that GW is focusing on characters, and more that those characters are more visible and present in the tabletop game?
leopard wrote: one of the best characters IMHO is Soloman Lok (IIRC thats the name), the Inquisitor from Imperial Armour "The Aphelion project"
someone the whole purpose of which was basically to show it really is a very big universe and no you really won't be missed
yeah, you're right. I forgot about that one, but the narrative (and Loks story in particular) was top shelf. Also probably the point where I fully came to comprehend what it means to say that Space Marines aren't really the heroes that some people make them out to be.
The extent to which they feel "detached" varies, I think.
Marines are generally sort of removed from the rest of humanity. So when a marine character shows up, the plot tends to be about them appearing out of the void, beating something up, then disappearing into the sunset. Pretty detached and prone to Mary Sue syndrome.
Phoenix Lords, being wanderers, have a slightly toned down version of the same thing. Show up. Do violence. Leave. In Asurmen's novel, I felt like they did a pretty good job of tying him to the current situation by making him significant to the mother character's arc. In the Jain Zar novel (which I enjoyed), Jain's interactions with basically everyone she meets is colored by a sort of celebrity status. She tends to steal the spotlight without trying by virtue of being in the room.
Yriel and Iyanna, especially in Valedor, both do a better job of feeling attached to the setting. They're both near their home craftworld, interacting with their family legacies, having connections to the people that live there.
Farsight and Shadowsun in their respective novels feel very much attached to the setting (the Tau Empire), even if their status lets them step over a lot of the red tape a less famous tau might deal with.
In Lukas the Trickster, everyone feels extremely at-home and in-character from Lukas to Malys to Sathonyx. The conflict is of a limited scope, and everyone feels like they belong there. If we must have named characters bump into each other, this is how to do it. No one is changing the galaxy, but they're all oozing personality without diminishing one anothers' capabilities.
You probably have to go all the way to Rogue Trader to avoid Named Characters.
Otherwise Named Characters have been influencing the story since very early. I mean even during 4th and purely from a Tyranid player perspective we already saw characters like Kryptman and Yriel having a strong impact on the setting.
My recently acquired Rogue Trader rulebook tells me that there were named characters from the start, such as the illustrious Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.
chaos0xomega wrote: So how does Horus Heresy figure into this? Its obviously a character driven narrative, which would make it a bit of the antithesis of what we believe 40k should be, yes? But thats ok, because thats what makes the 30k era distinct from the 41st millennium, because it was a period of greater hope and dynamic growth in the history of humanity, before the outcome of the Heresy resulted in stagnation - thats how I would look at it. Do we think that the 41st millennium is losing some of what makes the setting distinct from the 31st millennium via the heavy character focus?
Also, what about the likes of Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Ciaphas Cain, etc? I'll be upfront and say I've never read any of those books, but they were the "big names" in the setting back in the day, albeit ones that were missing from the tabletop. Has 40k actually always been somewhat character driven, but not necessarily by the characters found in the army lists and codecies? Is the issue maybe less that GW is focusing on characters, and more that those characters are more visible and present in the tabletop game?
As for 30k, it really is different from what came before in that not only are characters changing the course of history, but the narrative is actively moving forward.
That vibe seems to have definitely bled over onto the last couple editions of 40k fluff. More consequential characters, history moving forward, Primaris Marines representing a leap forward in tech and science, etc, etc...
All these were unknown for the first 7 editions of 40k which essentially represented a static, stagnant universe where new information was generally shared with players by revealing new parts of the universe rather than chronological progress.
As for Eisenhorn, it wasn't quite as separate as you might think. He featured quite prominently on the tabletop in the Inquisitor 54mm game that came out about the same time.
Oh, and read at least the first 3 Eisenhorn books. Still among the best 40K writing ever and the Ravenor trilogy is almost as good.
Even then it wasn't truly static. The Tau Empire and Tyranids being both new factions that quickly developed new stuff are most obvious cases, but there also was the awakening of Tomb Worlds and the Black Crusade.
It's kind of ironic to think that for quite some time the only part of the narrative that was actually moving forward was a part of the narrative that has already happened period. I wonder if the success of 30k is what in bolden gw to attempt to replicate that in 40k.
I don't know that I agree with those examples of it not being static.
When Tau were added it was done in a way where basically "they've always been here" - the Damocles Gulf Crusade and other events involving them were referenced as occurring in the past, rather than being "active" events occurring in the games present. Even subsequent codecies always established further developments as being past events. Each subsequent sphere of expansion had already happened or met with failure from the perspective of the narration, up until the most recent one (fifth sphere? Sixth sphere?) which is the first to be presented in a way that indicates that it is what the Tau are actively doing *now*. All their technological developments were also always likewise presented as stuff that has been around but not seen - this only changed relatively recently.
Nids have been around since 2nd edition, so might as well have been there from the actual start of things for how much the setting evolved since then. Likewise each hive fleet event was always presented as being in the past, leviathan was the only one ever really presented as being the "current" invasion - but said invasion made no real progress from 4th edition to 8th/9th edition, it just "was" and not much had changed until recently when they announced that it had split into separate fleets, etc.
Awakening Tomb worlds is similar to the Tau situation - all the meaningful stuff had already happened - were there more continuingbto awaken? Sure but that's like arguing the setting isn't stagnant because people wake up and go to sleep everyday, it had no meaningful impact on the narrative. It's only recently that theyvtook an active voice in the events related to the Necrons abd began presenting things as happening *now*.
I can't comment on the Black Crusade too much, because I only got into the hobby around the time of the Eye of Terror global campaign which represented the 13th Black Crusade. As such, from my perspective there have always been 13 black crusades, as in my 20 years in the hobby there has never been a 14th - in fact I'm pretty sure the 13th is still ongoing in the current edition, and while things are progressing narratively now, that wasnt really the case from late 3rd edition through late 7th edition. As far as I can tell the first 12 black crusades have always basically been "things that already happened" - there was never a point in the games history when the twelfth was already happening. Lore prior to the eye of terror campaign basically presented it as though the previous twelve crusades had already happened and the thirteenth was looming or in the early stages but not really fleshed out until the campaign. Even with the campaign, it was basically always presented in the past tense as something thst had already occurred though also somehow simultaneously being ongoing.
I guess, I get the point you're trying to make, but at the same time it's not a strong point because none of those developments were ever really about moving the story forward, instead they were about painting in background details to flesh out the setting.
All that being said, it dies raise the observation thst some of the tonal shift in the way the lore is being interpreted is down to the shift between passive voice vs active voice, etc. In the past everything had a sort of quality to it where it felt you were reading a history book about things that have already happened and the future of the setting was left open to possibility and you could take that in whichever directionyour imagination wanted to. Now you are reading about things as they happen which makes these events seem more... relatable? contemporary? I don't know what the word is, but it's peeled back a lot of the mystique of the setting and by trying to make it feel more alive have eliminated much of its grandiosity and made it feel smaller and less otherworldly than it once was, and while the future is still open, that's because it hasn't yet been published, rather than because you could forge your own narrative headcanon on where things would go from the "present".
The problem about the older fluff was they wrote themselves in a corner. Within 10000 years a lot of stuff suddenly happened within the last couple of months of M40. Necrons awoke, Tyranids invaded, Ghazghkull was about to start Ragnarork, Abaddon started his 13th crusade and since 6th edition all prior crusades were said to have been led to the 13th. So, naturally, every story you wanted to tell had to be inside the 1 minute to midnight, and that's what GW did. They did tell stories and squeezed them into that one minute. Just have a look at 40ks timeline on lexicanum.
And out of that situation the worse aspects of the new fluff emerged. Ghazghkull just... didn't gather all Orks. Abaddon just... split the galaxy in half and then went on raiding on smaller theaters. The Tyranids just... lost again at Baal. The Imperium just... had 10 additional pyrrhic victories.
I feel the really only decisive change in tone is how the Imperium is presented most of the time. Yes, there are still proper grimdark aspects, but they're more or less hidden in lesser known Black library Novels or footnotes in campaign books before the noble Space Marines arrive.
I was ok with the static setting of old editions. It set the tone and background for your own stories and that was quite enough.
The Chat-GPT written fluff pieces about "current events"I saw in a few recent White Dwarfs I borrowed from a friend don't add anything worthwhile in my opinion. Just dilute the well-established atmosphere.
Local anecdote, but besides the 4 or so top tier players who actually go to world class tournaments there's basically no more 40k tables to be seen at game night.
What irritates me the most about named characters is that it leads to the horrible mistake of Eternal Warrior nonsense. I don't care what your name is, if you get hit by something instant death related you should just die outright, not merely take a wound from a missile launcher to the face. It's one thing they dominate the narrative but they also dominate the game, and in a strange manner as well. Historically in 40K it was the custom character who was often more effective than the named character, and even if named characters were good at all there was usually caveats you needed an opponent's permission to play them. But now in the remake of the edition named characters feel like they beat down Captain Genericus soundly. 'Course the bull gak mortal wound spam and various defenses not offered by any traditional relics does well to pump characters up like the Lion.
That's the opposite of how it is in 10th, at the least. Named SM characters generally struggle to compete with the generic Cap's Rites of Battle. I've seen Sallies lists using Vulkan, but that's because he buffs their favored weapons. As I have restricted myself from using SW named characters (makes no sense for a successor), I can't comment on their utility.
lord_blackfang wrote: Local anecdote, but besides the 4 or so top tier players who actually go to world class tournaments there's basically no more 40k tables to be seen at game night.
Sad to hear, we had 2 games of 5th ed and 1 game of 10th, along with 2 battle tech, one dust 1947 and one war machine MK III tonight. and it was a light night with several people out sick.
Another anecdote a "visits once in a blue moon" guys came in, he doesn't play much but when he does it is at a store closer to his house, but he said he really appreciates the community at our store promoting gaming in general.
Further local anecdote: Everyone I've met in my local scene still playing 10th, aside from the hardcore tournament crowd, started in 10th. Cross-edition retention is looking a lot like...well, 6th-7th.
Uptonius wrote: Anecdotal example...
My group all started in 2nd 3rd or 4th. We play tenth now.
Human nature, people want to get games in so they will play what is most current, even if it is a raging dumpster fire...especially if it is just a little better than the inferno dumpster fire that was the end of 9th.
Since i play so many different games i enjoy each because they are different. as i find nothing appealing about 40K after 8th i have zero desire to play it. same as i have felt for games like MTG or malifaux.
Well there is also the issue that we want to play with the stuff we have.
Old school Marine players may be fine with their trusty old Tacticals and Terminators and Land Raiders that had rules since forever, but most other factions had massive expansions in units and models since then.
Uptonius wrote: Anecdotal example...
My group all started in 2nd 3rd or 4th. We play tenth now.
My inner circle has an assortment of start dates.
Me: tale end if RT.
After that most range from 3/4 -7th. I think only 1 person actually started 8th.
We've all played 8th+
For the most part we're content to play the current edition of the moment. Every now & then we'll play something older.
At the shop? Most players have an 8th+ start date. With the majority having started with 9th.
Once in a while you might still see an 8th or 9th ed game. But pretty much it's all 10e.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Let's go back to Black Codex-era Tyranids, where all I can field are Hive Tyrants, Tyranid Warriors, Termagants, Genestealers and Carnifexes!
That's literally all they had, and Hive Tyrants didn't even have a miniature yet.
I would actually prefer if GW had kept the Tyranid units' names simpler, a gaunt is a guant, no matter what bio-weapons they use. Oh well, I guess that beats calling gaunts with guns "Shooter Gaunts", at least.
Nevertheless, I am not a fan of the explosion of specialist names across all the codices (looking at Primaris here).
one faction needing its own datasheet for a tank with slightly different weapons so they can have 6 of them while the other one with completely different weapons just got 1 so there is a limit to 3 makes no sense and it would be much easier to balance if they scrap the rule of 3 (and multiple datasheets for the same unit) and add 0-X to the datasheet instead
H.B.M.C. wrote: I think having one name for multiple different unit types might get a bit silly after a while...
No sillier than insisting on two units that are identical except for having a different gun having to have different datasheets.
That's potentially Rule Of Three based.
Which is also silly
Yes it is silly but i understand why they did it. with a complete open army built framework of course everybody is going to spam the best units they can. the pre- 8th editions (not counting stupid formations/detachments that caused the same problems in 7th) prevented this by force org restrictions and even armies that got to move it around a bit took restrictions in other areas.
Think of it, an army build that you are only required to bring a leader and then you spend half you points on the best anti big thing squads and the other half on the best anti-infantry squads and your pretty well down to rock/paper/scissors.
kodos wrote: but why having the rule of 3 to prevent spam and than make 3 datasheets of the same unit to make them spam-able again?
Because some of them are likely to be a lot less pts-efficient and therefore not a balance problem if spammed. I see the problem with having no more than 3 Leman Russes in a 2k matched game, but I think it's worth it and I find the custom rules for each variant irksome. Whether you'd rather face 3 Squig Buggies and 3 of each of the other variants or 9 Squig Buggies is a matter of taste.
yeah, as I wrote above, for balance alone it would be way easier to remove the general rule of 3 and just add 0-X for each datasheet instead of that mess
kodos wrote: yeah, as I wrote above, for balance alone it would be way easier to remove the general rule of 3 and just add 0-X for each datasheet instead of that mess
How so? If you know that a unit is problematically strong like Flyrants, then why would you move the max from 9 to 3 when you're also nerfing the pts such that Flyrants are no longer an issue? Ro3 is strong exactly because it hits everything, even the units that are OP but no one knows they are yet, it's a pre-emptive ban on spammy lists, I also have a personal dislike for spammy lists, overpowered or not.
Uptonius wrote: Anecdotal example...
My group all started in 2nd 3rd or 4th. We play tenth now.
Human nature, people want to get games in so they will play what is most current, even if it is a raging dumpster fire...especially if it is just a little better than the inferno dumpster fire that was the end of 9th.
Since i play so many different games i enjoy each because they are different. as i find nothing appealing about 40K after 8th i have zero desire to play it. same as i have felt for games like MTG or malifaux.
Or, we just don't care about the rules that much and just play a game we enjoy?
We think 3rd and 4th are the greatest editions ever so 10th is fine with us.
Since I don't waste my time on inferior games I can enjoy 40k to the fullest instead of wasting my time on niche games that no one has heard of and most likely will never play.
Since I don't waste my time on inferior games I can enjoy 40k to the fullest instead of wasting my time on niche games that no one has heard of and most likely will never play.
In the context of the conversation in this thread, I'm curious what you are referencing as inferior games. Other GW games? Other company games? Older editions?
I know it's likely bait or just throwing shade for the sake of it, but am genuinely curious on this rationalization. Even among the numerous groups I play with I don't believe anyone thinks 40k is a superior game to a host of other options (GW or otherwise).
Yeah- the only force I could see myself playing in HH is SoS. There is a faction there that I like... but HH lacks so much of the stuff that makes the GW universe what it is to me, that even though there is a faction that I like enough to play, the universe itself is just duller without Xenos, SoB, and the three Ordos of the Inquisition that we love so much.
Death Watch and Grey Knights ARE my marines... Without them, I have very little interest in Marines at all. And it's kinda tough when the whole setting of the game is a war of one set of marines vs another set of marines. There are other factions, sure, but the game isn't ABOUT them, even when you're telling your stories from there point of view.
They may be factions... But their entire involvement in the story is picking a side in someone else's war.
1: No Xenos.
2: No Marines in proper Tactical, Assault, Devastator organization.
3: Not particularly willing to throw GW any money at this point.
2 that's untrue.
Oh?
So all I know is that at some point Ultramarines Veteran Squads were organized like a true Tactical Squad.
Veteran squads are for all legions available, and can take up to two specials or heavies, can be a troops choice and often have some legion specific bling ontop.
HH 2.0 is great for my Salamanders vs the Night Lords of a friend of mine, but I would still rather play my xenos and I have other friends that are xenos only.
I know this thread is kind of all over the place but I'm considering getting 40k Apocalypse and I'm curious if there are any here that play it fairly regularly. I've only seen it mentioned once here so I'm assuming not.
I have no intention of collection Epic scale but Apocalypse seems like a better system than 10th for the games my group likes to play.
As for the topic, I agree that 10th along with 9th and 8th before it seem to be GW's faulty attempt to get 40k more accessible and mainstream. I wish they were managing it in a way that wasn't so soul-draining but they are probably just a shell of their former selves. No passionate hobbyists at the helm anymore, just the corporate administratum.
Insectum7 wrote: ^So what about Devastators? A clump of Heavies with a retinue of bolters.
only heavies, but up to 10
Well then, point 2 stands
Oh noes, still ample enough room for a normal chapter to be fit into though, so no, not really.
Yes, selling it as a viable alternative to people upset that they just lost units and options, go play this other game where you also lose units and options and receive no extra sympathy
Insectum7 wrote: ^So what about Devastators? A clump of Heavies with a retinue of bolters.
only heavies, but up to 10
Well then, point 2 stands
Oh noes, still ample enough room for a normal chapter to be fit into though, so no, not really.
Yes, selling it as a viable alternative to people upset that they just lost units and options, go play this other game where you also lose units and options and receive no extra sympathy
? It is an alternative, sadly 40k will remain primaris spam, Cut appart and frankenstein fused together chaos, lackluster xeno support.
Atleast he would have the alternative.
Current state of 40k sucks but complaining that the alternative doesn't work on the marine side is a tad ironic.
And its not like he couldn't use the bolter Marines as legio or vets so he wouldn't realistically lose anything.
Contrary he'd gain on the infantry side quite a bit and on the hq side.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kingpbjames wrote: HH 2.0 is great for my Salamanders vs the Night Lords of a friend of mine, but I would still rather play my xenos and I have other friends that are xenos only.
I know this thread is kind of all over the place but I'm considering getting 40k Apocalypse and I'm curious if there are any here that play it fairly regularly. I've only seen it mentioned once here so I'm assuming not.
I have no intention of collection Epic scale but Apocalypse seems like a better system than 10th for the games my group likes to play.
As for the topic, I agree that 10th along with 9th and 8th before it seem to be GW's faulty attempt to get 40k more accessible and mainstream. I wish they were managing it in a way that wasn't so soul-draining but they are probably just a shell of their former selves. No passionate hobbyists at the helm anymore, just the corporate administratum.
Rarely saw it when it was current, but from what i heard the rules were well done. Which is a shame.
? It is an alternative, sadly 40k will remain primaris spam, Cut appart and frankenstein fused together chaos, lackluster xeno support.
Atleast he would have the alternative.
Current state of 40k sucks but complaining that the alternative doesn't work on the marine side is a tad ironic.
And its not like he couldn't use the bolter Marines as legio or vets so he wouldn't realistically lose anything.
Contrary he'd gain on the infantry side quite a bit and on the hq side.
Heh. Well "lackluster xeno support" remains better than zero xeno support.
But yeah, I want the traditional setup of Tactical, Assault and Devastator. And not just Devastator by name, but the OG four heavies and a number of bolters. This is something I can still do not only in 10th, but in older rule sets and alternatives like OPR. I have an army I've built and I'd like to use it as my army.
Insectum7 wrote: ^So what about Devastators? A clump of Heavies with a retinue of bolters.
only heavies, but up to 10
Well then, point 2 stands
Oh noes, still ample enough room for a normal chapter to be fit into though, so no, not really.
Yes, selling it as a viable alternative to people upset that they just lost units and options, go play this other game where you also lose units and options and receive no extra sympathy
? It is an alternative, sadly 40k will remain primaris spam, Cut appart and frankenstein fused together chaos, lackluster xeno support.
Atleast he would have the alternative.
Current state of 40k sucks but complaining that the alternative doesn't work on the marine side is a tad ironic.
And its not like he couldn't use the bolter Marines as legio or vets so he wouldn't realistically lose anything.
Contrary he'd gain on the infantry side quite a bit and on the hq side.
I mean, I play both games and I'm going to be honest it wouldn't be the same. I love heresy but 40k marines and Heresy marines operate differently.
It pains me to say it, but the classic marine doctrine of a core trio with supporting elements is dead at this point, it at least will be soon.
Not sure if indicative of current edition of the game, but I find the lack of new posts here regarding 40K far less than 8th and 9th.
Is the current game as enjoyable for the casual gamer of is their simply edition churn burnout? I do agree 9th was tough for a new player, so bloated in rules, but as a narrative gamer, it gave me the level of detail that 10th simply doesn’t have.
Myself and 5 buddies are playing some games this Friday to finish a campaign we started in 9th. We will be using 10th rules but choosing missions from the Vigilus books as the current narrative options simply don’t exist. Will see how it goes.
I know this thread is kind of all over the place but I'm considering getting 40k Apocalypse and I'm curious if there are any here that play it fairly regularly. I've only seen it mentioned once here so I'm assuming not.
I have no intention of collection Epic scale but Apocalypse seems like a better system than 10th for the games my group likes to play.
I haven't personally played, but I've never heard a bad word about it. I think your group would like it. One of the cool mechanics is that successful hits put a blast marker on a unit, and the damage from blast markers isn't resolved until the end of the round... So even if you get alpha-struck, you get to take the enemy with you... Which means your opponent is unlikely to gamble on alpha strike.
Action happens at the unit level, rather than the model level, so there are fewer dice. Movement trays for models make movement fast and smooth too.
0 months to play any other fully complete older edition.
with many choices as to which to use.
Chances are lower where i am to get an oldhammer game rather than HH. And i rekon that's a general fact sadly.
That requires effort on your part. teaching and building community. i think you would be surprised at how many players who may have started post 8th would enjoy playing "edition of your choice" if you break out the books and have them give it a go, even with a bit of proxying.
Our group only started out with 4 or 5 veteran players when 8th dropped and we said FETH GW were gonna go back and play 40K when it was more fun. now we have over a dozen players who play it along with us, most of whom started post 8th.
But yeah, I want the traditional setup of Tactical, Assault and Devastator. And not just Devastator by name, but the OG four heavies and a number of bolters. This is something I can still do not only in 10th, but in older rule sets and alternatives like OPR. I have an army I've built and I'd like to use it as my army.
there is a good chance this won't be a thing in 40k either in future
and using "your" army in 40k over several Editions was always a problem because of those changes
(and you won't get any sympathy for that because there is always the solution of buying more and otherwise your are just a grumpy old veteran who does not like new stuff)
there is a reason OPR gets so much attention again, because you are not the only one
That requires effort on your part. teaching and building community. i think you would be surprised at how many players who may have started post 8th would enjoy playing "edition of your choice" if you break out the books and have them give it a go, even with a bit of proxying.
Our group only started out with 4 or 5 veteran players when 8th dropped and we said FETH GW were gonna go back and play 40K when it was more fun. now we have over a dozen players who play it along with us, most of whom started post 8th.
What makes you think i didn't or don't play oldhammer occaisionally? That still doesn't however dispute the fact that HH is played more widely and overall on the rules side of things there's a lot going for its system over many older editions, the reaction system being f.e. one of that reasons. It also won't change the fact that 40k current edition tm is beeing communally insulated by efforts of gw itself.
? It is an alternative, sadly 40k will remain primaris spam, Cut appart and frankenstein fused together chaos, lackluster xeno support.
Atleast he would have the alternative.
Current state of 40k sucks but complaining that the alternative doesn't work on the marine side is a tad ironic.
And its not like he couldn't use the bolter Marines as legio or vets so he wouldn't realistically lose anything.
Contrary he'd gain on the infantry side quite a bit and on the hq side.
Heh. Well "lackluster xeno support" remains better than zero xeno support.
But yeah, I want the traditional setup of Tactical, Assault and Devastator. And not just Devastator by name, but the OG four heavies and a number of bolters. This is something I can still do not only in 10th, but in older rule sets and alternatives like OPR. I have an army I've built and I'd like to use it as my army.
Which is entirely fair but let's not pretend that what ammounts to xenos support nowadays is worth more than a token effort until a faction is released. Or primarising certain units without primarising them, cue boyz and snaggas.
? It is an alternative, sadly 40k will remain primaris spam, Cut appart and frankenstein fused together chaos, lackluster xeno support.
Atleast he would have the alternative.
Current state of 40k sucks but complaining that the alternative doesn't work on the marine side is a tad ironic.
And its not like he couldn't use the bolter Marines as legio or vets so he wouldn't realistically lose anything.
Contrary he'd gain on the infantry side quite a bit and on the hq side.
Heh. Well "lackluster xeno support" remains better than zero xeno support.
But yeah, I want the traditional setup of Tactical, Assault and Devastator. And not just Devastator by name, but the OG four heavies and a number of bolters. This is something I can still do not only in 10th, but in older rule sets and alternatives like OPR. I have an army I've built and I'd like to use it as my army.
Which is entirely fair but let's not pretend that what ammounts to xenos support nowadays is worth more than a token effort until a faction is released. Or primarising certain units without primarising them, cue boyz and snaggas.
What does this even mean? No army gets support without a release? In the last 6 years there have been notable releases for quite a few xenos armies, there's been plenty of effort into chaos and none-marine imperium as well.
Ork boyz are still ork boyz, beastsnaggaz was a weird choice but it's not "primaris" orks, no such units were introduced for nids, eldar, crons, admech, sisters, guard, any of the numerous chaos releases.
It means that individual xenos factions mostly get a medium-sized release once every >10 years and are on life support otherwise. "Xenos" isn't even really a thing organisation-wise, it's just a fancy label for "the rest". You can't ally in a carnifex when playing tau.
The fact that marines have been inflated to the point of being compared with "xenos", "chaos" and even "non-marine imperium" only underlines the point. In a healthier system you'd compare marines to other armies, not entire factions (or whatever organisational term we're supposed to use). But that ship sailed long ago I guess.
What does this even mean? No army gets support without a release? In the last 6 years there have been notable releases for quite a few xenos armies, there's been plenty of effort into chaos and none-marine imperium as well.
Ork boyz are still ork boyz, beastsnaggaz was a weird choice but it's not "primaris" orks, no such units were introduced for nids, eldar, crons, admech, sisters, guard, any of the numerous chaos releases.
Release, not faction release. Notable is entirely a point of debate, and effort into chaos is a joke considering WE launched with half a dex, TS are codex tzangoor still and CSM get ever more diluted by mortal chaos whilest mortal chaos has gone the way of the dodo as a standing force in and of itself.
Ork boyzs and snaggas just show the sad state of actual faction support is.
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shortymcnostrill wrote: It means that individual xenos factions mostly get a medium-sized release once every >10 years and are on life support otherwise. "Xenos" isn't even really a thing organisation-wise, it's just a fancy label for "the rest". You can't ally in a carnifex when playing tau.
The fact that marines have been inflated to the point of being compared with "xenos", "chaos" and even "non-marine imperium" only underlines the point. In a healthier system you'd compare marines to other armies, not entire factions (or whatever organisational term we're supposed to use). But that ship sailed long ago I guess.
shortymcnostrill wrote: It means that individual xenos factions mostly get a medium-sized release once every >10 years and are on life support otherwise. "Xenos" isn't even really a thing organisation-wise, it's just a fancy label for "the rest". You can't ally in a carnifex when playing tau.
The fact that marines have been inflated to the point of being compared with "xenos", "chaos" and even "non-marine imperium" only underlines the point. In a healthier system you'd compare marines to other armies, not entire factions (or whatever organisational term we're supposed to use). But that ship sailed long ago I guess.
9th challenged that status quo though.
Necrons, Orks and Craftworld Eldar all received a decent amount of updated kits and entirely new gubbins. And at this early stage? 10th has done the same for Tyranids.
That leaves Tau (who have traditionally done pretty well in terms of releases compared to other Xenos forces), Dark Eldar and Leagues of Votann. Oh, and Genestealer Cults who have, like the Tau, done better than most since their reintroduction in….I wanna say 7th Ed? Or was it 8th?
Orks have always gotten a decent insurgence of new models at steady intervals...
Just in plastic off the top of my head (may be missing a few):
5th edition Black Reach, Warbikes, Trukk, Battlewagon, Stormboys, Burnas/Lootas, Stompa, Killa Kanz, Deff Dread
6th edition:
Dakkajet, Burna Bomber, Blitza Bomber
7th edition:
Mek Guns, Mek, Shokk Attack, MANZ, Gorkanaut/Morkanaut, Flashgitz
8th edition:
5 Buggies, Deffkilla Wartrike, Ghazkull/makarai, Scrapyard
9th edition:
Boss Head bunker, beastsnaggas, new boyz, MANboss, Beastboss, Killrig, Squighog boys, Zogrog, snikrot, Squigasaur, Smasha Squig
To say that "xenos" doesn't get support is willfully ignoring releases (at least in orks case)
Tittliewinks22 wrote: Orks have always gotten a decent insurgence of new models at steady intervals...
Just in plastic off the top of my head (may be missing a few):
5th edition Black Reach, Warbikes, Trukk, Battlewagon, Stormboys, Burnas/Lootas, Stompa, Killa Kanz, Deff Dread
6th edition:
Dakkajet, Burna Bomber, Blitza Bomber
7th edition:
Mek Guns, Mek, Shokk Attack, MANZ, Gorkanaut/Morkanaut, Flashgitz
8th edition:
5 Buggies, Deffkilla Wartrike, Ghazkull/makarai, Scrapyard
9th edition:
Boss Head bunker, beastsnaggas, new boyz, MANboss, Beastboss, Killrig, Squighog boys, Zogrog, snikrot, Squigasaur, Smasha Squig
To say that "xenos" doesn't get support is willfully ignoring releases (at least in orks case)
For DE :
5th ed : basically the whole range we currently have
6th : ???
7th: new models for Archon, haemy, Succubi, Wracks and the voidraven bomber
8th : new Drazhar/Incubi
9th : new lelith
Necrons, Orks and Craftworld Eldar all received a decent amount of updated kits and entirely new gubbins. And at this early stage? 10th has done the same for Tyranids.
That leaves Tau (who have traditionally done pretty well in terms of releases compared to other Xenos forces), Dark Eldar and Leagues of Votann. Oh, and Genestealer Cults who have, like the Tau, done better than most since their reintroduction in….I wanna say 7th Ed? Or was it 8th?
GSC were indeed released end of 7th, so they got about 6 months with their dex before the edition reset.
I believe that 9th was at least somewhat kind to the Xenos. not just for the reasons above- I'd also say that Drukhari, Tau, GSC, Nids and Eldar all did pretty well on the Crusade front- their bespoke content for Crusade was fabulous. IMHO, Drukhari had the best Crusade rules in the game- Drukharimunda is just an awesome little minigame.
By contrast, Marine's Crusade content was pretty flat... The dreadnaught thing is cool, and the banner rules from Nachmund were decent. But in terms of long-term faction goals, 9th ed left a lot to be desired for Marines. Happily, the word is that 10th really improved Marines, and maintained the fairly high bar set for Nids.
It was really weird seeing so many Xeno factions get excellent Crusade content while some of the superstar factions in the game fared so poorly. I hear Orks had it bad, and I didn't pick up the 9th ed Votann dex, so I can't speak to their content either, but Drukhari, Tau and GSC were on a whole other level.
Now remind us how this is "token support" and not worth it compared to HH despite having checks notes 0 xenos factions.
You cite how stupid the volume of marine releases are whilst recommending people play a game centred around.... marines.
No, that is willfull misinterpretation, i reccomend those that don't want to play current 40k primaris to consider HH.
Xenos insofar however as a reason to not play HH or any other system above 40k is an argument that is in a poor state in and of itself.
Which is entirely fair but let's not pretend that what ammounts to xenos support nowadays is worth more than a token effort until a faction is released. Or primarising certain units without primarising them, cue boyz and snaggas.
Which is preciscly a problem, a new faction get's more support understandably, but comparativly to upkeep other factions require the list for those other xenos is lackluster in itself. Why not then consider importin xenos rules in a better system? Why not pick up OPR or oldhammer.
Xenos insofar however as a reason to not play 40k, and that is the bit that is important, comparativly to marines in 40k don't get as much support, as they deserve which lowers it as an argument to not consider HH or OPR or Oldhammer.
Oldhammer Xenos had even less support than modernhammer, HH as noted has ZERO Xenos support. So it is only really an argument for playing OPR.
Xenos insofar however as a reason to not play 40k, and that is the bit that is important, comparativly to marines in 40k don't get as much support, as they deserve which lowers it as an argument to not consider HH or OPR or Oldhammer.
Oldhammer Xenos had even less support than modernhammer, HH as noted has ZERO Xenos support. So it is only really an argument for playing OPR.
Which is fair, isn't it?
At some point the community (more accuratly any of our communities) will have to be responsible for their own actions and playstyle. And the fact remains that from a rules system point HH does the warhammer universe a better service on the rules side mechanically, OPR does the same.
But as soon as people suggest that maybee players and their communities do something on their own, that get's shut down understandable, afterall as i said, getting a match of HH in is easier than oldhammer...
There's no xenos support in age of sigmar either, clearly gw is xenophobic and hates xenos players.
Thats how ridiculous it sounds when you guys refer to the lack of xenos in HH. There's no xenos because they aren't part of the scope or context for the game. It's irrelevant to bring it up in this argument
chaos0xomega wrote: There's no xenos support in age of sigmar either, clearly gw is xenophobic and hates xenos players.
Thats how ridiculous it sounds when you guys refer to the lack of xenos in HH. There's no xenos because they aren't part of the scope or context for the game. It's irrelevant to bring it up in this argument
It's as irrelevant as telling people with xenos collections to play HH, which gets brought up here.
I know this thread is kind of all over the place but I'm considering getting 40k Apocalypse and I'm curious if there are any here that play it fairly regularly. I've only seen it mentioned once here so I'm assuming not.
I have no intention of collection Epic scale but Apocalypse seems like a better system than 10th for the games my group likes to play.
I haven't personally played, but I've never heard a bad word about it. I think your group would like it. One of the cool mechanics is that successful hits put a blast marker on a unit, and the damage from blast markers isn't resolved until the end of the round... So even if you get alpha-struck, you get to take the enemy with you... Which means your opponent is unlikely to gamble on alpha strike.
Action happens at the unit level, rather than the model level, so there are fewer dice. Movement trays for models make movement fast and smooth too.
It could have been a great system... but unfortunately the design team had a number of mechanics they had to include which limited the design space considerably. So you have the madness of choosing whether or not to fit a heavy stubber onto your tanks, while the stat line for a Leman Russ and chimera in terms of survivability was the same. The cards were meant to bring in tactical options the rules design pushed out, but had their own problems.
chaos0xomega wrote: There's no xenos support in age of sigmar either, clearly gw is xenophobic and hates xenos players.
Thats how ridiculous it sounds when you guys refer to the lack of xenos in HH. There's no xenos because they aren't part of the scope or context for the game. It's irrelevant to bring it up in this argument
I know this thread is kind of all over the place but I'm considering getting 40k Apocalypse and I'm curious if there are any here that play it fairly regularly. I've only seen it mentioned once here so I'm assuming not.
I have no intention of collection Epic scale but Apocalypse seems like a better system than 10th for the games my group likes to play.
I haven't personally played, but I've never heard a bad word about it. I think your group would like it. One of the cool mechanics is that successful hits put a blast marker on a unit, and the damage from blast markers isn't resolved until the end of the round... So even if you get alpha-struck, you get to take the enemy with you... Which means your opponent is unlikely to gamble on alpha strike.
Action happens at the unit level, rather than the model level, so there are fewer dice. Movement trays for models make movement fast and smooth too.
It could have been a great system... but unfortunately the design team had a number of mechanics they had to include which limited the design space considerably. So you have the madness of choosing whether or not to fit a heavy stubber onto your tanks, while the stat line for a Leman Russ and chimera in terms of survivability was the same. The cards were meant to bring in tactical options the rules design pushed out, but had their own problems.
I really liked the look of it when it came out, but the price of the book and movement trays and so forth was just too high of a barrier to entry. I kind of suspect I might prefer it to10th (at least 2k games of 10th) if I ever tried it out.
I do feel like I'm in this odd place where what I really want is either a more abstract game that plays smoother and captures the feeling of maneuvering entire armies rather than feeling like a football play... or else a smaller scale game (with like, 500ish points to a side) with more detailed unit customization, flanking mechanics, etc.
10th plays smoothly on the table, but so far I'm struggling to really "get into" games the way I have in the past. I'm having trouble forging that narrative.
chaos0xomega wrote: There's no xenos support in age of sigmar either, clearly gw is xenophobic and hates xenos players.
Thats how ridiculous it sounds when you guys refer to the lack of xenos in HH. There's no xenos because they aren't part of the scope or context for the game. It's irrelevant to bring it up in this argument
It's as irrelevant as telling people with xenos collections to play HH, which gets brought up here.
This. It's not like xenos players are bringing up HH to whinge about it out of the blue. It's just a well-worn conversation track.
'I don't like how 40K has developed'
'You should try HH then, it's more like oldhammer'
'But I play xenos and they aren't supported'
(cue another page of nitpicking minutiae)
Maybe people should stop recommending HH2.0 to xenos players feeling burned? It's about as relevant as suggesting AOS as an alternative.
As it stands if you don't play Marines or something you can viably proxy as Solar Auxilia or Militia, or don't like 30K Marine organization, or don't like how HH2.0 is written (because, frankly, it's kind of a mess), the only reasonably popular alternative is OPR. Which I recommend giving a go if you can find like-minded players, because it is free and readily available, but YMMV and it's not for everyone.
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Wyldhunt wrote: I do feel like I'm in this odd place where what I really want is either a more abstract game that plays smoother and captures the feeling of maneuvering entire armies rather than feeling like a football play... or else a smaller scale game (with like, 500ish points to a side) with more detailed unit customization, flanking mechanics, etc.
I don't think that's an odd take at all. I've posted a few times over the years about how modern 40K doesn't know what scale it wants to operate on. Picking a single scale and assuming the necessary abstractions and scope limitations would almost certainly allow a cleaner ruleset.
But it will never happen, because the amount of backlash to either stripping out chrome (to optimize for larger games) or limiting what you can field (to optimize for smaller games) would be massive. 40K players expect to be able to choose exactly what sort of sidearm their officer carries and also to field superheavy tanks, damn the consequences.
Anyways, I like Apocalypse. It's a bit rough around the edges but the core mechanics make for an engaging and fast-playing experience, and you can play it at the equivalent to 2000pts of 40K without issues. It's just a shame that it was basically dead on arrival and hasn't been updated with new models.
Or there's always Epic- if you have a community that will invest in it.
I do feel like I'm in this odd place where what I really want is either a more abstract game that plays smoother and captures the feeling of maneuvering entire armies rather than feeling like a football play... or else a smaller scale game (with like, 500ish points to a side) with more detailed unit customization, flanking mechanics, etc.
10th plays smoothly on the table, but so far I'm struggling to really "get into" games the way I have in the past. I'm having trouble forging that narrative.
This has been the major decline of interest in 40k for my play group as well since 4th.
It seems every iteration they keep inflating the scale of the game but are trying to maintain the intricacies of the smaller skirmish roots. To our group, this is just making the game feel needlessly tedious. We pretty much barely play 40k anymore it seems, constantly playing Battletech, Sigmar, Conquest:TLAOK, or now Warmachine Mk4. At some point when you have 60 models on the table, then having 15 flavors of rifle becomes tedious to keep track of and resolve.
Also dice bloat... 40k has serious dice bloat problem. I think this partially due to the limitation of the d6, and more-so with the new to hit/to wound charts, but having to roll 30+ dice for one unit three times (hit, wound, save) not counting any rerolls is too much. It's rather obvious a system has a huge core issue when one of their balance levers they start to lean into is roll more dice.
chaos0xomega wrote: There's no xenos support in age of sigmar either, clearly gw is xenophobic and hates xenos players.
Thats how ridiculous it sounds when you guys refer to the lack of xenos in HH. There's no xenos because they aren't part of the scope or context for the game. It's irrelevant to bring it up in this argument
It's as irrelevant as telling people with xenos collections to play HH, which gets brought up here.
This. It's not like xenos players are bringing up HH to whinge about it out of the blue. It's just a well-worn conversation track.
'I don't like how 40K has developed'
'You should try HH then, it's more like oldhammer'
'But I play xenos and they aren't supported'
(cue another page of nitpicking minutiae)
Maybe people should stop recommending HH2.0 to xenos players feeling burned? It's about as relevant as suggesting AOS as an alternative.
As it stands if you don't play Marines or something you can viably proxy as Solar Auxilia or Militia, or don't like 30K Marine organization, or don't like how HH2.0 is written (because, frankly, it's kind of a mess), the only reasonably popular alternative is OPR. Which I recommend giving a go if you can find like-minded players, because it is free and readily available, but YMMV and it's not for everyone.
Yeah this is all bs. I don't have a 40k marine army. I still play horus heresy because I started a 30k marine army.
People aren't recommending HH to you because you're burned as a result of being a Xenos player, they are recommending it to you because you are burned being a 40k player. Your core complaints are complaints that impact all players of all factions. Ergo the recommendation to HH is to basically play a different game where the complaints you have are not relevant or impactful.
Myself and 5 buddies are playing some games this Friday to finish a campaign we started in 9th. We will be using 10th rules but choosing missions from the Vigilus books as the current narrative options simply don’t exist. Will see how it goes.
I am setting up a large scale Planetstrike mission for my brother and his friends to play during the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend using BA & GK as defenders and Tyranids and CSM as attackers. Will have Bunkers, Turrets, Power Generators, all destroyable terrain with special rules.
We will be using the 9th edition rules, some terrain rules from them, and the 9th Mission books which include PlanetStrike rules.
I don't personally feel there is enough in 10th to actually use to create the same in depth gameplay as what 9th has. My friends have just decided to skip 10th and keep having fun with our 9th edition books.
chaos0xomega wrote: There's no xenos support in age of sigmar either, clearly gw is xenophobic and hates xenos players.
Thats how ridiculous it sounds when you guys refer to the lack of xenos in HH. There's no xenos because they aren't part of the scope or context for the game. It's irrelevant to bring it up in this argument
It's as irrelevant as telling people with xenos collections to play HH, which gets brought up here.
This. It's not like xenos players are bringing up HH to whinge about it out of the blue. It's just a well-worn conversation track.
'I don't like how 40K has developed'
'You should try HH then, it's more like oldhammer'
'But I play xenos and they aren't supported'
(cue another page of nitpicking minutiae)
Maybe people should stop recommending HH2.0 to xenos players feeling burned? It's about as relevant as suggesting AOS as an alternative.
As it stands if you don't play Marines or something you can viably proxy as Solar Auxilia or Militia, or don't like 30K Marine organization, or don't like how HH2.0 is written (because, frankly, it's kind of a mess), the only reasonably popular alternative is OPR. Which I recommend giving a go if you can find like-minded players, because it is free and readily available, but YMMV and it's not for everyone.
Yeah this is all bs. I don't have a 40k marine army. I still play horus heresy because I started a 30k marine army.
People aren't recommending HH to you because you're burned as a result of being a Xenos player, they are recommending it to you because you are burned being a 40k player. Your core complaints are complaints that impact all players of all factions. Ergo the recommendation to HH is to basically play a different game where the complaints you have are not relevant or impactful.
Respectfully, if you're acknowledging that xenos players' current armies (probably) can't be used in HH, then that means they'd have to:
1. Buy a new army.
2. Buy new books for HH.
Which does sound exactly like what they'd have to do if you told them to go play AoS instead. Catbarf's analogy seems apt.
But it will never happen, because the amount of backlash to either stripping out chrome (to optimize for larger games) or limiting what you can field (to optimize for smaller games) would be massive. 40K players expect to be able to choose exactly what sort of sidearm their officer carries and also to field superheavy tanks, damn the consequences.
I think a third expectation is the one that makes balancing this impossible; they also want the game done in 2.5 hours, so they can cram 3 games in a day for a tournament.
I am fortunate enough to have a group of pals to play second edition with, with all its attendant detail, and we’ve still had the massive battles with knights and Gorkanauts stomping next to our Sergeants with their personalised side arms because we’ve accepted they are the special sort of day long games that you just can’t do every session.
I got a first game of 10th in the other night, and while not as bad as 9th (where I couldn’t wait for the game to end), it’s a hollow sort of game after coming from the richness of 2nd Ed. It’s not even a comparable experience anymore. It’s a shame it’s so difficult to get folks to try out older editions (or, heaven forbid, non-GW games) as there is a lot of better things out there and that pressure to improve could only make the current version better.
I think a third expectation is the one that makes balancing this impossible; they also want the game done in 2.5 hours, so they can cram 3 games in a day for a tournament.
Doesnt even need to be for tournaments, having games be short-ish allows us to play weeknights instead of weekends only.
"Ergo the recommendation to HH is to basically play a different game where the complaints you have are not relevant or impactful."
This isn't a xenos players issue. Its true of any player. They can pretend that their 40k marine army works for Horus Heresy, it doesn't and theres a lot of people that won't agree to play someone trying to pull that nonsense (but thats a different topic for another thread).
Its a different game. The advice being given is not "go take your army and use it this way instead", its "if you're so unhappy with the game and don't like it, you can try playing this completely different game which does not suffer the same issues you are complaining about". Its called a "recommendation" - it shouldn't be that difficult a concept to grasp. That different game in this example is Horus Heresy, but it could be Age of Sigmar, Team Yankee, Warmachine, Bolt Action or whatever is appropriate to address the issues the complainant has.
This line of discourse is quite frankly completely asinine.
There is a thematic aspect that makes many if not most xenos players unlikely to want to play HH.
Many of us play 40k because we like the lore, themes, aesthetic, etc. If we are to try a new game, we are more likely to try one that has a faction that is thematically similar to our xenos factions.
So we would be looking for space orcs, space elves, space bugs, space robots, etc when considering other games.
They can pretend that their 40k marine army works for Horus Heresy, it doesn't and theres a lot of people that won't agree to play someone trying to pull that nonsense (but thats a different topic for another thread)..
You literally told Insectum their army would work in HH and said the loss of specific 40k squad structures was a non-issue due to gaining options?
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Tyran wrote: There is a thematic aspect that makes many if not most xenos players unlikely to want to play HH.
Many of us play 40k because we like the lore, themes, aesthetic, etc. If we are to try a new game, we are more likely to try one that has a faction that is thematically similar to our xenos factions.
So we would be looking for space orcs, space elves, space bugs, space robots, etc when considering other games.
This in a nut shell. The majority of people who aren't marine players (loyalist or chaos) get fed up of "bolter porn" and hence HH is a different game but not one that has much for them.
^And even playing Marines, ideally I'd like to spend my time fighting xenos of various types. The most dull times in 40k I've had is when 9 out of ten players at the club are playing Marines. . . which is basically the billing of HH. No thanks.
Insectum7 wrote: ^And even playing Marines, ideally I'd like to spend my time fighting xenos of various types. The most dull times in 40k I've had is when 9 out of ten players at the club are playing Marines. . . which is basically the billing of HH. No thanks.
Thats because all marines play the same in 40k, in HH every legion feels like its own standalone faction.
They can pretend that their 40k marine army works for Horus Heresy, it doesn't and theres a lot of people that won't agree to play someone trying to pull that nonsense (but thats a different topic for another thread)..
You literally told Insectum their army would work in HH and said the loss of specific 40k squad structures was a non-issue due to gaining options?
Insectum7 wrote: ^And even playing Marines, ideally I'd like to spend my time fighting xenos of various types. The most dull times in 40k I've had is when 9 out of ten players at the club are playing Marines. . . which is basically the billing of HH. No thanks.
Thats because all marines play the same in 40k, in HH every legion feels like its own standalone faction.
I'll press X to doubt. I'm sure a lot of people will argue that SW and RG don't exactly fight the same in 40k either.
But also they still look like mirror matches. Dudes in PA vs dudes in PA. Chaos Marines in 40k even appear to add more variety than HH has, and they're still dudes in PA. Tyranids? Orks? Eldar? Now that's some variety in texture.
Insectum7 wrote: ^And even playing Marines, ideally I'd like to spend my time fighting xenos of various types. The most dull times in 40k I've had is when 9 out of ten players at the club are playing Marines. . . which is basically the billing of HH. No thanks.
Thats because all marines play the same in 40k, in HH every legion feels like its own standalone faction.
This is a largely evangelical claim rooted in a combination of legitimate rules nuance and collective imagination. From an outsiders perspective, Horus Heresy legions appear less functionally differentiated from one another than the current Tyranid Assimilation Swarm is from the Vanguard Infiltrator detachment.
Tyran wrote: There is a thematic aspect that makes many if not most xenos players unlikely to want to play HH.
Many of us play 40k because we like the lore, themes, aesthetic, etc. If we are to try a new game, we are more likely to try one that has a faction that is thematically similar to our xenos factions.
So we would be looking for space orcs, space elves, space bugs, space robots, etc when considering other games.
Why do you self-identify so strongly with fictional tropes? I don't know what to tell you, except that theres no such thing as a "xenos player", only "player who play xenos factions". People like what they like, I get that, but saying "I only play elves in this one game, so I'm only going to play elves in any game" is a bizarre mindset to me.
Insectum7 wrote: ^And even playing Marines, ideally I'd like to spend my time fighting xenos of various types. The most dull times in 40k I've had is when 9 out of ten players at the club are playing Marines. . . which is basically the billing of HH. No thanks.
Thats because all marines play the same in 40k, in HH every legion feels like its own standalone faction.
This is a largely evangelical claim rooted in a combination of legitimate rules nuance and collective imagination. From an outsiders perspective, Horus Heresy legions appear less functionally differentiated from one another than the current Tyranid Assimilation Swarm is from the Vanguard Infiltrator detachment.
I would agree, that was my perspective on the matter... until I actually played the game.
Why do you self-identify so strongly with fictional tropes? I don't know what to tell you, except that theres no such thing as a "xenos player", only "player who play xenos factions". People like what they like, I get that, but saying "I only play elves in this one game, so I'm only going to play elves in any game" is a bizarre mindset to me.
If I didn't strongly identify with the fictional tropes I wouldn't be playing 40k, or fiction based games in general.
To be honest I struggle to understand a mindset that discard themes and still seeks to play fictional games.
They can pretend that their 40k marine army works for Horus Heresy, it doesn't and theres a lot of people that won't agree to play someone trying to pull that nonsense (but thats a different topic for another thread)..
You literally told Insectum their army would work in HH and said the loss of specific 40k squad structures was a non-issue due to gaining options?
where did I say that?
On this comment chain, cba chopping apart the whole thing, but basically over the last 2 pages
They can pretend that their 40k marine army works for Horus Heresy, it doesn't and theres a lot of people that won't agree to play someone trying to pull that nonsense (but thats a different topic for another thread)..
You literally told Insectum their army would work in HH and said the loss of specific 40k squad structures was a non-issue due to gaining options?
where did I say that?
On this comment chain, cba chopping apart the whole thing, but basically over the last 2 pages
Why do you self-identify so strongly with fictional tropes? I don't know what to tell you, except that theres no such thing as a "xenos player", only "player who play xenos factions". People like what they like, I get that, but saying "I only play elves in this one game, so I'm only going to play elves in any game" is a bizarre mindset to me.
If I didn't strongly identify with the fictional tropes I wouldn't be playing 40k, or fiction based games in general.
To be honest I struggle to understand a mindset that discard themes and still seeks to play fictional games.
So yes, I self-identify as a "xenos player".
I concur, i play with a guy who must play dwarves in any game system that has them-WHFB, warmachine (rhulic) etc...
Many times in various games i have started a faction because of just how cool the minis look, 40K specifically when i had to choose which chapter of marines i wanted to play it was all about the lore/thematic rules. one can play any game system, but what keeps people playing/interested in coming back to the game is the setting/lore/background that draws your interest. it is why houses/clans/units have such die hard fan boys in classic battle tech for example.
Is 10th soulless. All I know is I was vey happy the rules were free. Better that than buyers remorse. I would really like to roll dice again but from looking at 10th I'ma pass.
What I find most or rather least cool, yes least, is how it looks like combi weapons are handled.
That's the one that jumps out at me the most. Does it really matter?
That's a tough one. But then I am in the "I like templates" camp.
All that said and based on my first skilling of the rules, followed by re reading 5th edition, which I did not enjoy, 5th looks better to me.
Wish I could try OPR but I don't know anyone interested and I don't know now if my HH friends are playing new HH or the previous edition but either of those looks more inviting right now.
In a way it feels like 40K has moved on without me. Maybe it has. I think the larger problem is that people chase editions and don't seem interested to even look at older editions which a lot of older games could facilitate for newer players, just to have a go every now and then. I really do not like being so negative about a hobby I have enjoyed for going on more than 27 years.
Tyran wrote: There is a thematic aspect that makes many if not most xenos players unlikely to want to play HH.
Many of us play 40k because we like the lore, themes, aesthetic, etc. If we are to try a new game, we are more likely to try one that has a faction that is thematically similar to our xenos factions.
So we would be looking for space orcs, space elves, space bugs, space robots, etc when considering other games.
That seems like a stretch... I play 5 different wargames, and not once was my thought put in to "picking a faction that is thematically similar to my xenos faction." My playgroup I cannot think of anyone who has thought that they need to play something similar among all games they play, generally most people I know would go out of their way to play something different for variety sake.
Tyran wrote: There is a thematic aspect that makes many if not most xenos players unlikely to want to play HH.
Many of us play 40k because we like the lore, themes, aesthetic, etc. If we are to try a new game, we are more likely to try one that has a faction that is thematically similar to our xenos factions.
So we would be looking for space orcs, space elves, space bugs, space robots, etc when considering other games.
Why do you self-identify so strongly with fictional tropes? I don't know what to tell you, except that theres no such thing as a "xenos player", only "player who play xenos factions". People like what they like, I get that, but saying "I only play elves in this one game, so I'm only going to play elves in any game" is a bizarre mindset to me.
For my part, the reason is that Xeno armies are the ones I like and own and have invested a great deal of time and effort into.
If I was going to move from 40k to 30k, it would be with the hope of using the models I already own - not starting a new Marine army and shelving all my Xeno armies.
In that instance, there's no difference between starting HH and starting Malifaux or Infinity (save that the latter are almost certainly substantially cheaper ) - all require me to buy an entirely new army and shelve my existing ones.
If we all agree that HH isn't a like substitute to 40K, I don't see the relevance in bringing it up to begin with. I play HH because I like HH, but if someone who is disillusioned with 40K is looking for a new game and isn't expecting either thematic relevance to their 40K faction or the ability to use their 40K models, I'd sooner recommend Chain of Command, Infinity, or Battletech. For using their existing 40K army, then the two main options are OPR or older editions of 40K.
I guess if you really like Space Marines and you don't mind how they're different in 30K or that HH is a significantly different game and you're comfortable with re-buying your army, then shifting from 40K to HH makes sense.
Otherwise suggesting HH amounts to 'hey, did you know that games other than 40K exist and you can play them?'. Okay, sure. Nobody needed that reminder.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Telling people disillusioned with 40k's rules to play HH doesn't make a lot of sense to me, even before we get into the Xenos side of things.
People like 40k because they like 40k.
Ok, but wich40k do they like? RT? 2e? 3e-7e? 8e-10e? Some subdivision of 3e-7e/8e-10e? Some mix?
H.B.M.C. wrote: You don't say "Well, just watch Star Trek!" to someone who's had enough of current Star Wars.
1) Most of those people will have already watched ST anyways.
2) On the off chance they haven't, why not? Am I supposed to recommend something else to them?
Tyran wrote: There is a thematic aspect that makes many if not most xenos players unlikely to want to play HH.
Many of us play 40k because we like the lore, themes, aesthetic, etc. If we are to try a new game, we are more likely to try one that has a faction that is thematically similar to our xenos factions.
So we would be looking for space orcs, space elves, space bugs, space robots, etc when considering other games.
Why do you self-identify so strongly with fictional tropes? I don't know what to tell you, except that theres no such thing as a "xenos player", only "player who play xenos factions". People like what they like, I get that, but saying "I only play elves in this one game, so I'm only going to play elves in any game" is a bizarre mindset to me.
All the armies are fictional - even those based on humans are fictional when we deal with fictional settings.
Thing is yes some people do like the styles, ambiance, lore, artwork etc.. of fictional elves over fictional space marines. Heck whilst I enjoy Marines in lore, art, video games and more they've never been an army I wanted to build as a whole force.
For some the story behind a faction is as much a part of their choice as the art style or the game stats and if a game has great rules but no faction that "clicks" then that's a big deal in wargaming. You're going to spend a lot of money and hours just building let alone painting time before the models see the table (and if you play unpainted you've still got that building time).
Lore, art, style, game mechanics, game performance - all are in the melting pot and for different people different bits are important. And heck sometimes people vary - they might have that army they only like for its game performance and nothing else; but they might well have a second that they love the visuals of even if its game performance is poor etc...
1: the 40k game rules are crap, so play a different game like HH with different rules
2: the 40k support for my xenos army, that I specifically enjoy playing and want to continue to play, is making it very hard for me to continue to play with it.
They are completely separate.
If all you care about is game mechanics and playing a 'better game', then sure HH is a legitimate alternative to a game as a whole.
But if you specifically like a particular faction of 40k and are looking for ways to play games WITH that faction, then no, HH is irrelevant to the conversation.
My assumption is that most people that play Xenos factions do specifically because they want to play that faction on the table, not because it's part of some abstract game system that they enjoy... gamingly.
You certainly have to have somewhat of a different attitude and thick skin to want to play non marine armies in 40k, because GW make no bones about how unimportant you and your money is.
I suppose you could always write up HH rules for your xenos factions if the local HH crowd is cool enough to let you use them!
Is HH 2.0 significantly different from 7th edition? I know HH 1.0 was pretty similar, and I got the impression that most of the appeal was:
A.) Basically chapter tactics. This was before most armies had subfaction rules.
B.) It was perceived to be better balanced; probably due a combination of mostly only needing to balance marines against each other and also not having 7th's Formation problems.
its weird, having played more of 10th.. is it soulless? maybe, but you can add the soul to it yourself for your army, give your army its own history etc
there is enough background there, 40 10th is more of a rules framework, it feels incomplete, like how you need the card mission deck to get a good game from it
leopard wrote: its weird, having played more of 10th.. is it soulless? maybe, but you can add the soul to it yourself for your army, give your army its own history etc
And then you put your army on the table and watch it instantly revert to a soulless, grey blob.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Telling people disillusioned with 40k's rules to play HH doesn't make a lot of sense to me, even before we get into the Xenos side of things.
People like 40k because they like 40k.
You don't say "Well, just watch Star Trek!" to someone who's had enough of current Star Wars.
It's more akin to telling someone to watch the prequels who liked Episodes IV-VI but hated VII+ and is complaining about it.
If you said to that person "you should try the prequels, they're not as bad and the setting is the same", and they turned around and said "sorry, Leia isn't in that trilogy, you might as well have told me to watch Twister, I only watch Carrie Fisher content", you might be right to be confused.
leopard wrote: its weird, having played more of 10th.. is it soulless? maybe, but you can add the soul to it yourself for your army, give your army its own history etc
And then you put your army on the table and watch it instantly revert to a soulless, grey blob.
well yes and no, though I usually watch it revert to back in its box and end up with points for the tidiest side of the table.
soul and narrative is where you find it, even if its just to yourself, I have armies who follow their glorious leader out of a sense of wonder, wondering just how %^$ing bad it can get?
leopard wrote: its weird, having played more of 10th.. is it soulless? maybe, but you can add the soul to it yourself for your army, give your army its own history etc
And then you put your army on the table and watch it instantly revert to a soulless, grey blob.
Hey, it's only grey because I haven't painted it yet!
But seriously? 10e does nothing to erase the stories/fun memories/epic wins & losses/campaigns fought through etc attached to any of my forces.
My forces souls are intact.....
ccs wrote: Ok, but wich40k do they like? RT? 2e? 3e-7e? 8e-10e? Some subdivision of 3e-7e/8e-10e? Some mix?
That's not really a relevant point.
ccs wrote: 1) Most of those people will have already watched ST anyways.
Neither is that.
ccs wrote: 2) On the off chance they haven't, why not? Am I supposed to recommend something else to them?
Oh! I see. You didn't understand my point. Ok, cool. I'll try to be clearer:
If someone likes 40k, it's because they like 40k. And if they're having problems with 40k, suggesting something that isn't40k really all that helpful, because whatever that other thing is, it isn't40k, which is the thing that they like.
If someone likes 40k, it's because they like 40k. And if they're having problems with 40k, suggesting something that isn't40k really all that helpful, because whatever that other thing is, it isn't40k, which is the thing that they like.
What do you do when they don't like 40k - y'know, like many if the people in this thread?
You're right though, if someone's trundling along happy and they like 40k, it certainly is just an donkey-cave move to say "akshully you should be playing X".
This shouldn't need to be said, but there is a difference between "I don't like x" and "I like x but have problems with how it's being run". Probably something where someone should try to find out why someone else is saying "I don't like x" before trying to make suggestions.
problem with "I like 40k" simply is that 40k is constantly changing at a very fast rate
so the 40k you may like will be gone and never come back within 3-6 years
either you like the the new version, or you are screwed as it will never come back
there is a reason why OPR gets attention, because it is as closer to 40k people like than 10th (with all the problem 40k have)
it is just that some people still think that GW might reverse and they 40k they like will come back they just need to wait long enough (and playing anything else in between is wasted time)
As a Space Wolves and Thousand Sons player, after several Editions I know that the 40k I liked will never come back and therefore I play other games instead
waefre_1 wrote: This shouldn't need to be said, but there is a difference between "I don't like x" and "I like x but have problems with how it's being run". Probably something where someone should try to find out why someone else is saying "I don't like x" before trying to make suggestions.
Which doesn't work when a lot of the people in this thread have been saying "I don't like 40k" for the last three editions of the game.
There comes a point where people need to just move on and find something they do like because constantly complaining about how much they don't like all the current things means people who do like the current editions can't actually talk about them without having a conversation derailed by complaining or feel pressured into hiding their enjoyment so they don't have to get told they're wrong and stupid by people who should just move on.
Because that's what everyone else does. If you don't like a given hobby you find something else. Don't like 40k? Find another game to enjoy or take enjoyment from the modelling aspect and stop constantly complaining about how much you hate everything.
leopard wrote: its weird, having played more of 10th.. is it soulless? maybe, but you can add the soul to it yourself for your army, give your army its own history etc
And then you put your army on the table and watch it instantly revert to a soulless, grey blob.
Hey, it's only grey because I haven't painted it yet!
ccs wrote: But seriously? 10e does nothing to erase the stories/fun memories/epic wins & losses/campaigns fought through etc attached to any of my forces.
My forces souls are intact.....
Let me try and better explain what I mean, just so we're not talking at cross-purposes.
When I say that 10th has drained the soul from my army, I mean that it prevents me from enacting core elements its fluff on the tabletop. Let me give an example:
My army has two Archons (one is more akin to a Dracon but alas that's yet another option long since stripped from my book) - one is a frontline warrior who charges into battle accompanied by a unit of Incubi warrior-bodyguards. The other is more cautious, taking shots at range and only moving into melee when the time is right. He is accompanied by a unit of Mandrakes, as he has an unusually close connection to them.
In 9th I could represent this just fine. Both Archons were free to join their respective units and while their wargear choices are frankly pathetic I could at least tailor their WLTs and Artefacts to bring across their distinct roles (e.g. giving the melee Archon the Djin Blade and the ranged Archon the Soul Seeker).
I would add, too, that neither of these seem particularly egregious or exploitative. A ranged Archon hardly seems unreasonable given that they used to be able to take fully-functional Blasters. In terms of units, Incubi are well-known in the fluff for being bodyguards and have filled that role ever since 3rd. Mandrakes are a little more unusual but hardly seem beyond the pale. Even more so when you consider that GW can't be bothered to support them in any other way - having steadfastly refused to give DE an actual Mandrake HQ, whilst canning the one we used to have.
In 10th, however, both Archons are now unit-locked. My melee Archon cannot join Incubi, nor can my ranged Archon join Mandrakes. I could perhaps toss aside all my fluff relating to Mandrakes and have my ranged Archon join Warriors (so that he'd at least be a part of a ranged unit). But even this falls flat because my ranged Archon no longer has any credible ranged options. Indeed, his loadout is now exactly the same as that of the melee Archon. And the pitiful selection of enhancements similarly fails to offer any meaningful way to distinguish the pair.
This is just one example, obviously, but my point is that 10th has completely stripped away so many things that let you customise your force and bring your own lore to the tabletop. It's all very well saying that 10th doesn't change your lore, but if your lore doesn't match the extremely narrow view of GW, then you're stuck with an army that isn't allowed to even come close to resembling your lore when you put it on the table.
Although I played the most during 3.5-5th edition, I think 40k truly 'lost' something from the 2nd to 3rd transition. Not only in rules, but some presentation things that started around 3rd (or maybe even late 2nd) which really bore fruit during 5th edition where many more people caught onto it.
Rogue Trader to 2nd probably lost a few things or made some mistakes, but it feels kind of different.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Telling people disillusioned with 40k's rules to play HH doesn't make a lot of sense to me, even before we get into the Xenos side of things.
People like 40k because they like 40k.
You don't say "Well, just watch Star Trek!" to someone who's had enough of current Star Wars.
If they say they would prefer a franchise that is more episodic in nature, is more accessible without watching and reading every bit of existing content as each series or film is sufficiently standalone, and is generally more philosophical and thoughtful in its in its storytelling and attempts to tackle complex social issues without being in your face preachy about it, etc. then yeah - I'm recommending they check out Star Trek if they are disillusioned by Star Wars (or at least the older Trek series, haven't watched any of the newer stuff).
catbarf wrote: If we all agree that HH isn't a like substitute to 40K, I don't see the relevance in bringing it up to begin with. I play HH because I like HH, but if someone who is disillusioned with 40K is looking for a new game and isn't expecting either thematic relevance to their 40K faction or the ability to use their 40K models, I'd sooner recommend Chain of Command, Infinity, or Battletech. For using their existing 40K army, then the two main options are OPR or older editions of 40K.
I guess if you really like Space Marines and you don't mind how they're different in 30K or that HH is a significantly different game and you're comfortable with re-buying your army, then shifting from 40K to HH makes sense.
Otherwise suggesting HH amounts to 'hey, did you know that games other than 40K exist and you can play them?'. Okay, sure. Nobody needed that reminder.
The main point in suggesting HH is that most people complaining about 40k are saying "I wish 40k rules worked this way instead" or "I want to play a game thats exactly like 40k, but differs in these key ways" - and more often than not those descriptions are exactly what HH is. Sure I can recommend any number of non-GW games to people, but Chain of Command, Infinity, and Battletech are nothing like 40k, and making those recommendations to someone that is explicitly saying that they want an experience that is similar to 40k but differs in certain key ways isn't helpful, because those games do not fit that criteria in any way, shape, or form.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Telling people disillusioned with 40k's rules to play HH doesn't make a lot of sense to me, even before we get into the Xenos side of things.
People like 40k because they like 40k.
You don't say "Well, just watch Star Trek!" to someone who's had enough of current Star Wars.
It's more akin to telling someone to watch the prequels who liked Episodes IV-VI but hated VII+ and is complaining about it.
If you said to that person "you should try the prequels, they're not as bad and the setting is the same", and they turned around and said "sorry, Leia isn't in that trilogy, you might as well have told me to watch Twister, I only watch Carrie Fisher content", you might be right to be confused.
In 9th I could represent this just fine. Both Archons were free to join their respective units
Point of order, in 9th they couldn't join units at all and were always separate units, and in 10th you don't *have* to join a character to a unit, so you are free to have one of your archons/dracons stand next to a unit of mandrakes or incubi or whatever it is that you want them to be hanging out with, and you won't be in a position thats really much different from where you were in 9th.
I don't disagree - but would flag up that DE probably have the weakest connection between the lore and how your army works on the table. So its arguably unfair to judge all of 10th on that basis.
(The fact its been the case since 5th can however leave you doubtful GW will do anything about it. Making everything 20% cheaper so the win% shoots up isn't resolving the issue.)
In 9th I could represent this just fine. Both Archons were free to join their respective units
Point of order, in 9th they couldn't join units at all and were always separate units, and in 10th you don't *have* to join a character to a unit, so you are free to have one of your archons/dracons stand next to a unit of mandrakes or incubi or whatever it is that you want them to be hanging out with, and you won't be in a position thats really much different from where you were in 9th.
Sigh. I see we're going for the wilfully-obtuse angle.
No, you're right, Characters in 9th didn't technically join units. But they could nevertheless hang out with whichever units they pleased and receive protection from doing so.
I could have a Succubus hang out with a unit of Beasts or even Cronos if I considered it appropriate. I could have a Haemonculus join Warriors or an Archon join Grotesques. Whether or not their abilities buffed those units, they would at least still be protected by being in proximity to such.
And then we look at 10th. Yes, I can have an Archon hang out with Mandrakes or Incubi. And then I can watch as he's immediately sniped because he doesn't have Lone Operative and so gets zero protection when not attached to a unit of Warriors or the Court of the Archon.
Tyel wrote: I don't disagree - but would flag up that DE probably have the weakest connection between the lore and how your army works on the table. So its arguably unfair to judge all of 10th on that basis.
Why not? It's still stripped away every last iota of fun and flavour from my army.
Yes, other editions have done this (and I haven't exactly held back when talking about them in the past). However, 10th is the first that has firmly crossed the threshold of making the army no longer fun to even try to play.
And if I am not allowed to judge it on that basis - when the question is literally if 10th has drained the soul from 40k - then on what basis am I permitted to judge it?
Daba wrote: Although I played the most during 3.5-5th edition, I think 40k truly 'lost' something from the 2nd to 3rd transition. Not only in rules, but some presentation things that started around 3rd (or maybe even late 2nd) which really bore fruit during 5th edition where many more people caught onto it.
Rogue Trader to 2nd probably lost a few things or made some mistakes, but it feels kind of different.
I think though the player base changed. Lots drifted away but far more came with the style of game 3rd onwards was, so it made sense for the company.
Yeah, I forgot about the lone operative thing, thats on me, my bad. I don't have a lot of experience actually playing 10th yet, just one game, and not even a full one at that.
Rogue Trader, now that I have the rulebook, strikes me as more of an open-ended skirmish RPG than an actual set of hard and fast rules for playing a wargame. Theres a lot of stuff in there which is basically optional, superfluous, padding, or what-have-you, and from what I understand a lot of stuff that was replaced or given alternate rules in the compendium and compilation or whatever they were called, etc. I've come to view it as more of a public beta test or a rules prototype than an actual solidified game engine. What I know of 2nd seems like a refinement of the concept coalesced into a proper standardized game/ruleset. 3rd streamlined a lot and simplified it in many ways - id agree that something was "lost" from the game in the process for better or for worse.
Yes, other editions have done this (and I haven't exactly held back when talking about them in the past). However, 10th is the first that has firmly crossed the threshold of making the army no longer fun to even try to play.
Not defending anything post 8th edition, but 7th edition Dark Eldar codex made me sell out of the army... the 5th edition codex was so packed full of flavor and options. Unfortunately DE were one of the pre-necron 7th edition bland books that stripped all the flavor from the army. While 10th may seem poor for Dark Eldar flavor, everything after the 7th edition codex has really been crap for the faction.
If someone likes 40k, it's because they like 40k. And if they're having problems with 40k, suggesting something that isn't40k really all that helpful, because whatever that other thing is, it isn't40k, which is the thing that they like.
What do you do when they don't like 40k - y'know, like many if the people in this thread?
You're right though, if someone's trundling along happy and they like 40k, it certainly is just an donkey-cave move to say "akshully you should be playing X".
And yet, you keep doing it. You kind of did it in this very comment.
I too have been utterly disappointed with the Dark Eldar in particular. What is currently about the only thing stopping me just ebaying my models is the hope that this is just interim index blandness, and they make more of an effort in the codex.
With that in mind I'm wondering; for those of you who've bought the SM or Tyranid books - is there any significant change from index to codex in terms of rules, equipment, options etc for models / units - or does the codex basically just repeat what was in the index but with additional detachments etc?
In 9th I could represent this just fine. Both Archons were free to join their respective units
Point of order, in 9th they couldn't join units at all and were always separate units, and in 10th you don't *have* to join a character to a unit, so you are free to have one of your archons/dracons stand next to a unit of mandrakes or incubi or whatever it is that you want them to be hanging out with, and you won't be in a position thats really much different from where you were in 9th.
Sigh. I see we're going for the wilfully-obtuse angle.
No, you're right, Characters in 9th didn't technically join units. But they could nevertheless hang out with whichever units they pleased and receive protection from doing so.
I could have a Succubus hang out with a unit of Beasts or even Cronos if I considered it appropriate. I could have a Haemonculus join Warriors or an Archon join Grotesques. Whether or not their abilities buffed those units, they would at least still be protected by being in proximity to such.
And then we look at 10th. Yes, I can have an Archon hang out with Mandrakes or Incubi. And then I can watch as he's immediately sniped because he doesn't have Lone Operative and so gets zero protection when not attached to a unit of Warriors or the Court of the Archon.
Tyel wrote: I don't disagree - but would flag up that DE probably have the weakest connection between the lore and how your army works on the table. So its arguably unfair to judge all of 10th on that basis.
Why not? It's still stripped away every last iota of fun and flavour from my army.
Yes, other editions have done this (and I haven't exactly held back when talking about them in the past). However, 10th is the first that has firmly crossed the threshold of making the army no longer fun to even try to play.
And if I am not allowed to judge it on that basis - when the question is literally if 10th has drained the soul from 40k - then on what basis am I permitted to judge it?
This is BLATANT revisionist history. 7th edition DE wasn't worth putting on the table. You guys were on the same level as Digital Only Codex sisters of battle. There wasn't a single faction in the game you had a decent matchup against, and your rules were even more bland than they are now.
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Crispy78 wrote: I too have been utterly disappointed with the Dark Eldar in particular. What is currently about the only thing stopping me just ebaying my models is the hope that this is just interim index blandness, and they make more of an effort in the codex.
With that in mind I'm wondering; for those of you who've bought the SM or Tyranid books - is there any significant change from index to codex in terms of rules, equipment, options etc for models / units - or does the codex basically just repeat what was in the index but with additional detachments etc?
Can't speak for the Marine dex but the Nid dex is actually awesome. It doesn't really change much on a unit basis (because who cares? A gun's a gun, a sword's a sword) but the detachments completely change how the army plays.
An assimilation swarm is completely different from a Vanguard Infiltrator list. Synaptic Nexus functions VERY differently than Endless Swarm.
It's pretty great. And no, I don't care that I can't give captain librarian chapter master leftenent snuggletoots a powerfist, a chainsword, AND a parking meter.
It's pretty great. And no, I don't care that I can't give captain librarian chapter master leftenent snuggletoots a powerfist, a chainsword, AND a parking meter.
How about bikes? Losing the option to have bike units, attack bikes, bike characters was a gigantic blow to people with White Scar armies. They got a detachment in the codex, but no units to run them with. And as weapons go if you had all "fists/hammers" removed from a melee marine army you would not like to play the army. Especialy if the army also had no good shoting to replace the melee.
It's pretty great. And no, I don't care that I can't give captain librarian chapter master leftenent snuggletoots a powerfist, a chainsword, AND a parking meter.
How about bikes? Losing the option to have bike units, attack bikes, bike characters was a gigantic blow to people with White Scar armies. They got a detachment in the codex, but no units to run them with. And as weapons go if you had all "fists/hammers" removed from a melee marine army you would not like to play the army. Especialy if the army also had no good shoting to replace the melee.
ERJAK clearly stated they don't care about wargear for characters I'm this case, it's pointless you asking as that's a very subjective question anyway. It's a shame that some options have gone, some people will be more bothered than others. Personally I'd rather they threw a bone somewhere for bike lovers but I'd also add that white scars being memed into BIKES!BIKES!BIKES! isn't necessarily great either, they were masters of mounted combat, I.e. mounted on a bike, jetbike, mounted in transports which is the key one people forget.
It's pretty great. And no, I don't care that I can't give captain librarian chapter master leftenent snuggletoots a powerfist, a chainsword, AND a parking meter.
How about bikes? Losing the option to have bike units, attack bikes, bike characters was a gigantic blow to people with White Scar armies. They got a detachment in the codex, but no units to run them with. And as weapons go if you had all "fists/hammers" removed from a melee marine army you would not like to play the army. Especialy if the army also had no good shoting to replace the melee.
Well that conversation has to start with wether or not one uses Legends (and you know this).
●If you don't use Legends for whatever reason? Then you're probably pretty sad/angry concerning bikes. Or whatever other 1st born units are no longer in the codex.
●If you do use Legends? Then Life's still good.
I guess its reasonable to go "DE sucks, edition sucks" - and I agree that DE suck right now.
But it just feels a bit... one-dimensional. Like if someone said "9th sucks... because I played Guard and they were awful aside from the last 6 months." Or say GK in 8th.
Its not wrong - but you are picking the worst faction. Its sort of inevitably not going to feel good. Maybe we'll get a good update in 2025. (Here's a codex, and a new version of Urien, don't say we don't do anything for you...)
This is BLATANT revisionist history. 7th edition DE wasn't worth putting on the table. You guys were on the same level as Digital Only Codex sisters of battle. There wasn't a single faction in the game you had a decent matchup against, and your rules were even more bland than they are now.
Are you seriously claiming that I've misinterpreted my own opinion?
As to 7th, it was an absolute travesty of a codex that stripped away tons of options from the 5th edition book. It was dismal in terms of both power and flavour.
However, 7th also had a few saving graces - most notably the Haemonculus Covens book. While still not without issues, that book added a ton of flavour and fun builds that were sorely missing in the main codex. It was only for Covens but at least it was something.
If 7th made you quit DE, I can fully understand that. I don't by any means defend it. However, for me it never quite reached the level of wanting to abandon the army entirely. 10th has already exceeded that threshold.
What I scratch my head at is why people follow the edition trends so religiously or are so unwilling to try other wargames in the first place. The most depressing thing about 40k isn't that it's a bad wargame, it's that it so often seems to be peoples' first and only wargame. Rather than picking up something like Stargrunt or some other system where you can reasonably cram non-monster critters into it they just burn/sell/abandon their armies in a fury and storm off from wargaming altogether. A large reason for why the 40k situation feels so gak is a lack of community effort in the first place. Fantasy for example continues to survive in pockets clustered around either two fan 'editions' or on historic examples and doesn't seem nearly as beleaguered by what I could only describe as "edition loyalty". Hell the entire behavior of the 40k community is just strange in how people so readily pick up new editions in the first place.
Wyzilla wrote: Hell the entire behavior of the 40k community is just strange in how people so readily pick up new editions in the first place.
I'd wager that much of the reason you see this for 40k is that for a long time, and probably still, it's the easiest game to get a pickup game with. It's the game that's played, and people want to keep up with the editions because that's what they're likely to run into in the wild.
There's strong pressure to play what is played. It makes things easier and in the best circumstances helps to create a thriving community.
Wyzilla wrote: Hell the entire behavior of the 40k community is just strange in how people so readily pick up new editions in the first place.
I'd wager that much of the reason you see this for 40k is that for a long time, and probably still, it's the easiest game to get a pickup game with. It's the game that's played, and people want to keep up with the editions because that's what they're likely to run into in the wild.
There's strong pressure to play what is played. It makes things easier and in the best circumstances helps to create a thriving community.
Except it's also the only TT related thing where I can think of this sort of phenomena occurring. RPG's? People run old systems all the time or just outright make up their own systems. Card games? Magic has immense popularity with both normal and commander modes. Usually when there's edition loyalty in wargames it's more because there's only two or three editions and they release decades apart so people have no familiar with the old ruleset in the first place. 40K meanwhile turns the whole thing into a fad but the strange thing is that the rules team themselves don't even want this. The interviews with them lay out that they make the game with the intention of everyone just bashing stuff together without terrible amount of structure, and then the actual 40k players start shouting matches because your dudes aren't WYSIWYG or your loadout isn't legal. I don't think it's so much just ease of play as the community has infected itself with a strangely legalistic culture that even the game makers never intended for which creates some of the huge problems 40k suffers from, 10e being gak or not.
Wyzilla wrote: Hell the entire behavior of the 40k community is just strange in how people so readily pick up new editions in the first place.
I'd wager that much of the reason you see this for 40k is that for a long time, and probably still, it's the easiest game to get a pickup game with. It's the game that's played, and people want to keep up with the editions because that's what they're likely to run into in the wild.
There's strong pressure to play what is played. It makes things easier and in the best circumstances helps to create a thriving community.
Strong agree. W40k's two biggest strength's are a) its lore and b) its ubiquity. And the cost of ubiquity is staying up to date, no matter what the rules actually look like that quarter, since the only thing that matters about the quality of the rules is their publication date.
Personally, 8E got me back after I left the game in 5E, and was a welcome return. Then 9E drowned that goodwill under the obnoxious complexity of uninspiring stratagem play (plus releasing the Chaos codexes woefully late in the cycle). I've yet to play 10E but have some good friends getting into the game for the first time that make me excited in a way that the edition itself certainly does not.
Ultimately, I realized some time in the last years that the happiest you'll be "playing warhammer" is to focus on the hobby and get a few games in with your mates every year. Make cool stuff, put it on the table, muddle through the rules at your own pace, roll dice, have some laughs, make more cool stuff.
Wyzilla wrote: Hell the entire behavior of the 40k community is just strange in how people so readily pick up new editions in the first place.
I'd wager that much of the reason you see this for 40k is that for a long time, and probably still, it's the easiest game to get a pickup game with. It's the game that's played, and people want to keep up with the editions because that's what they're likely to run into in the wild.
There's strong pressure to play what is played. It makes things easier and in the best circumstances helps to create a thriving community.
Except it's also the only TT related thing where I can think of this sort of phenomena occurring. RPG's? People run old systems all the time or just outright make up their own systems. Card games? Magic has immense popularity with both normal and commander modes. Usually when there's edition loyalty in wargames it's more because there's only two or three editions and they release decades apart so people have no familiar with the old ruleset in the first place. 40K meanwhile turns the whole thing into a fad but the strange thing is that the rules team themselves don't even want this. The interviews with them lay out that they make the game with the intention of everyone just bashing stuff together without terrible amount of structure, and then the actual 40k players start shouting matches because your dudes aren't WYSIWYG or your loadout isn't legal. I don't think it's so much just ease of play as the community has infected itself with a strangely legalistic culture that even the game makers never intended for which creates some of the huge problems 40k suffers from, 10e being gak or not.
I think that's more a combination of tournaments setting expectations, and the aggressive release cycle.
ERJAK clearly stated they don't care about wargear for characters I'm this case, it's pointless you asking as that's a very subjective question anyway. It's a shame that some options have gone, some people will be more bothered than others. Personally I'd rather they threw a bone somewhere for bike lovers but I'd also add that white scars being memed into BIKES!BIKES!BIKES! isn't necessarily great either, they were masters of mounted combat, I.e. mounted on a bike, jetbike, mounted in transports which is the key one people forget.
What do you mean "memed" WS are the biker faction. Just like DA are the terminators faction and BA are the jump pack faction. Telling WS to just use rhinos or what ever the primaris transports are called may just be replaced with telling them to play white painted ultramarines. People don't tell 1ksons or DG players to play CSM or vice versa.
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Wyzilla wrote: The interviews with them lay out that they make the game with the intention of everyone just bashing stuff together without terrible amount of structure, and then the actual 40k players start shouting matches because your dudes aren't WYSIWYG or your loadout isn't legal. I don't think it's so much just ease of play as the community has infected itself with a strangely legalistic culture that even the game makers never intended for which creates some of the huge problems 40k suffers from, 10e being gak or not.
Other games don't cost as much. Buying mtg from china, playing skirmish games is nothing , cost wise, comparing to how much a w40k army costs, and the churn of builds is faster, then even that core MtG. You can bet that people will stricktly enforce legality when it takes so much money to build an army, and the more months it takes to build an army, the more serious people get about them. I can imagine that to some people, the price of a w40k army may not matter. But I work now and if I wanted to buy a full w40k or AoS army, I would have to not eat, not pay rent, not buy monthly tram ticket, not buy supplements for 3 months. But even if it was one month, it would still be serious. People like to call w40k a beer and pretzel game, but it is only that, for people who played for 20+ years with multiple armies, who don't have to buy much new stuff to play. I have seen teens try to pick up 10th ed, and got burned worse then most people in 8th and 9th. Those dudes will not return to play the game in the next few years, and stores don't work well with a population of 35+ year olds with full armies and access to 3d printers.
Karol wrote: I have seen teens try to pick up 10th ed, and got burned worse then most people in 8th and 9th. Those dudes will not return to play the game in the next few years, and stores don't work well with a population of 35+ year olds with full armies and access to 3d printers.
Just curious, how did these teens get burned from trying to pick up 10th? Was it from the Errata/FAQs that made some large changes to the game and/or points or was it something else?
Yeah- the only force I could see myself playing in HH is SoS. There is a faction there that I like... but HH lacks so much of the stuff that makes the GW universe what it is to me, that even though there is a faction that I like enough to play, the universe itself is just duller without Xenos, SoB, and the three Ordos of the Inquisition that we love so much.
Death Watch and Grey Knights ARE my marines... Without them, I have very little interest in Marines at all. And it's kinda tough when the whole setting of the game is a war of one set of marines vs another set of marines. There are other factions, sure, but the game isn't ABOUT them, even when you're telling your stories from there point of view.
They may be factions... But their entire involvement in the story is picking a side in someone else's war.
Totally understandable POV Jake. I completely understand why someone would want to avoid HH due to the lack of the factions that they prefer. If HH didn't include the 8th Legion, I wouldn't be interested in it myself. My apologies, I was just trying to do a bit of recruiting, but if it isn't for you, that's fine.
As to everyone else who turned my playful attempt to move Jake to HH and turned it into a multi page fight: this is why I only engage this forum when I'm at least 50% ripped nowadays. Calm down guys, please. I was specifically talking to Jake, no one else. I fully understand why someone wouldn't want to move to a system that doesn't support their preferred faction, again, I wouldn't do it myself. Apologies if my opinion seemed otherwise.
Wyzilla wrote: The interviews with them lay out that they make the game with the intention of everyone just bashing stuff together without terrible amount of structure, and then the actual 40k players start shouting matches because your dudes aren't WYSIWYG or your loadout isn't legal. I don't think it's so much just ease of play as the community has infected itself with a strangely legalistic culture that even the game makers never intended for which creates some of the huge problems 40k suffers from, 10e being gak or not.
This doesn't track with the absurdly legalistic manner in which rules are written, the fact that some of those rules-lawyer things actually stem from GW themselves (see: Warhammer World events requiring you update models to the latest base size), or the highly technical, prescriptive nature of wargear and unit options to enforce strict NMNR.
10th Ed is not written as a 'pick up your dudes and go' sort of ruleset. They might claim it is, but it isn't. The most charitable way to interpret it is that they want to make a casual beer-and-pretzels game but instead respond to market demand and now we have Metawatch articles and quarterly balance updates based on tournament results.
ERJAK clearly stated they don't care about wargear for characters I'm this case, it's pointless you asking as that's a very subjective question anyway. It's a shame that some options have gone, some people will be more bothered than others. Personally I'd rather they threw a bone somewhere for bike lovers but I'd also add that white scars being memed into BIKES!BIKES!BIKES! isn't necessarily great either, they were masters of mounted combat, I.e. mounted on a bike, jetbike, mounted in transports which is the key one people forget.
What do you mean "memed" WS are the biker faction. Just like DA are the terminators faction and BA are the jump pack faction. Telling WS to just use rhinos or what ever the primaris transports are called may just be replaced with telling them to play white painted ultramarines.
They were memed into being the bike faction in 2004 via their Index Astartes WD article.
It listed what units the White Scars used, dictated that all squads & characters had to be either bike mounted or mounted in tranports, assault troops could not remove thier jump packs, shifted bike squads into the Troops Slot on the FoC, and gave extra chapter specific rules for bike units.
Once this happened? Virtually anyone playing WS went all in on ALL BIKES, ALL THE TIME.
Despite the chapter being stated as making use of jump packs, foot units mounted in rhinos/Razorbacks, termies riding in Landraiders, drop pods, speeders, etc....
So near instant meme.
It also completely overshadowed the other SM biker army - the Ravenwing (Dark Angels, 2nd Co.)
Personally I liked the White Scars as a primarily biker army. It gave them a bit more flavor and distinction from some of the other famous chapters, even if it was a bit memey. I liked the idea that there was an entire chapter that trained and specialized in fighting on bikes as a primary doctrine warfighting doctrine, when the majority of their compatriots (Dark Angels included) were primarily infantry based.
@Gadzilla666 - No problem on the attempted recruit; honestly, if I was a bit more financially stable, it actually would have worked! The Kharon Pattern Acquisitor is one of my favourite GW vehicles- it's the creepiest grimdark thing in the range, and if it was plastic I'd already have one whether I planned on playing HH or not.
RE: White Scars
I do clearly remember White Scar speeders and rhinos featuring in armies, mostly in WD articles- Jump packs too.
I like White Scars Bikers... Gives me that Genghis Khan / Mongolian vibe in a way that jump packs, speeders and rhinos don't.
ERJAK clearly stated they don't care about wargear for characters I'm this case, it's pointless you asking as that's a very subjective question anyway. It's a shame that some options have gone, some people will be more bothered than others. Personally I'd rather they threw a bone somewhere for bike lovers but I'd also add that white scars being memed into BIKES!BIKES!BIKES! isn't necessarily great either, they were masters of mounted combat, I.e. mounted on a bike, jetbike, mounted in transports which is the key one people forget.
What do you mean "memed" WS are the biker faction. Just like DA are the terminators faction and BA are the jump pack faction. Telling WS to just use rhinos or what ever the primaris transports are called may just be replaced with telling them to play white painted ultramarines.
They were memed into being the bike faction in 2004 via their Index Astartes WD article.
It listed what units the White Scars used, dictated that all squads & characters had to be either bike mounted or mounted in tranports, assault troops could not remove thier jump packs, shifted bike squads into the Troops Slot on the FoC, and gave extra chapter specific rules for bike units.
Once this happened? Virtually anyone playing WS went all in on ALL BIKES, ALL THE TIME.
Despite the chapter being stated as making use of jump packs, foot units mounted in rhinos/Razorbacks, termies riding in Landraiders, drop pods, speeders, etc....
So near instant meme.
It also completely overshadowed the other SM biker army - the Ravenwing (Dark Angels, 2nd Co.)
Actually it did not, as an old school dark angels player with a ravenwing army and a copy of all of the index astartes books. the scars make melee themed bike centric army with mechanized support elements. all the special rules-born in the saddle, hit&run, bike mounted veterans, outflank, and counter attack made them good at it, where as the ravenwing could not bring anything other than bikes, attack bikes and land speeder tornados/tempests. their rules also made them a bike centric shooting army-fearless, jink save from shooting, skilled rider, the master of the ravenwing land speeder that improved their shooting via the all seeing eye etc...they could do CC but they did not excel at it.
ERJAK clearly stated they don't care about wargear for characters I'm this case, it's pointless you asking as that's a very subjective question anyway. It's a shame that some options have gone, some people will be more bothered than others. Personally I'd rather they threw a bone somewhere for bike lovers but I'd also add that white scars being memed into BIKES!BIKES!BIKES! isn't necessarily great either, they were masters of mounted combat, I.e. mounted on a bike, jetbike, mounted in transports which is the key one people forget.
What do you mean "memed" WS are the biker faction. Just like DA are the terminators faction and BA are the jump pack faction. Telling WS to just use rhinos or what ever the primaris transports are called may just be replaced with telling them to play white painted ultramarines.
They were memed into being the bike faction in 2004 via their Index Astartes WD article.
It listed what units the White Scars used, dictated that all squads & characters had to be either bike mounted or mounted in tranports, assault troops could not remove thier jump packs, shifted bike squads into the Troops Slot on the FoC, and gave extra chapter specific rules for bike units.
Once this happened? Virtually anyone playing WS went all in on ALL BIKES, ALL THE TIME.
Despite the chapter being stated as making use of jump packs, foot units mounted in rhinos/Razorbacks, termies riding in Landraiders, drop pods, speeders, etc....
So near instant meme.
It also completely overshadowed the other SM biker army - the Ravenwing (Dark Angels, 2nd Co.)
Actually it did not, as an old school dark angels player with a ravenwing army and a copy of all of the index astartes books. the scars make melee themed bike centric army with mechanized support elements. all the special rules-born in the saddle, hit&run, bike mounted veterans, outflank, and counter attack made them good at it, where as the ravenwing could not bring anything other than bikes, attack bikes and land speeder tornados/tempests. their rules also made them a bike centric shooting army-fearless, jink save from shooting, skilled rider, the master of the ravenwing land speeder that improved their shooting via the all seeing eye etc...they could do CC but they did not excel at it.
It provided a completely different style of play.
Well, as a fellow old-school player with all the same books on thier shelf.....
We will have to just agree that we saw different things.
What I saw WS wise - both in my home area & as I traveled - was virtually all bikes, all the time. The # of non-bike/attack bike WS units I saw used were so few as to not be a factor in this discussion. And I NEVER saw a rhino mounted WS unit IRL.
You know what else I didn't see?
Any new Ravenwing forces being built.
And that's because while you could make a good shooty RW force that was ok-ish come CC, you could make an all bike based WS force that was good at both. So shocker, people built the force that was good at both....
Maybe you saw something different wherever you were at the time?
Wyzilla wrote: The interviews with them lay out that they make the game with the intention of everyone just bashing stuff together without terrible amount of structure, and then the actual 40k players start shouting matches because your dudes aren't WYSIWYG or your loadout isn't legal. I don't think it's so much just ease of play as the community has infected itself with a strangely legalistic culture that even the game makers never intended for which creates some of the huge problems 40k suffers from, 10e being gak or not.
This doesn't track with the absurdly legalistic manner in which rules are written, the fact that some of those rules-lawyer things actually stem from GW themselves (see: Warhammer World events requiring you update models to the latest base size), or the highly technical, prescriptive nature of wargear and unit options to enforce strict NMNR.
10th Ed is not written as a 'pick up your dudes and go' sort of ruleset. They might claim it is, but it isn't. The most charitable way to interpret it is that they want to make a casual beer-and-pretzels game but instead respond to market demand and now we have Metawatch articles and quarterly balance updates based on tournament results.
Yeah, I can't look at the absolute rules mush that is the Tau "For the Greater Good" ability and square that with the game being meant to be simple.
Text in full, in case anyone wants to see for themselves:
Spoiler:
If your Army Faction is T’au Empire, then in your Shooting phase units from your army can work in pairs to help each other target specific enemy units. When they do this, one unit is the Observer unit and the other is their Guided unit. The enemy they are targeting is called their Spotted unit.
Each time you select this unit to shoot, if it is not an Observer unit, it can use this ability. If it does, select one other friendly unit with this ability that is also eligible to shoot (excluding Fortification, Battleshocked and Observer units). Until the end of the phase, this unit is considered a Guided unit, and that friendly unit is considered an Observer unit. Then select one enemy unit that is visible to both your units to be their Spotted unit.
Until the end of the phase:
■ Each time a model in a Guided unit makes an attack that targets their Spotted unit, improve the Ballistic Skill characteristic of the attack by 1 and, if their Observer unit has the Markerlight keyword, the attack has the [IGNORES COVER] ability.
■ Each time a model in a Guided unit makes an attack that does not target their Spotted unit, worsen the Ballistic Skill characteristic of the attack by 1.
This is also one of the reasons they needed to errata in that a unit that had shot was no longer eligible to shoot*, as before that you could just daisy chain all your units by selecting the previous unit you shot with as the observer for the next unit.
*Not that they actually did that, but rather hid the errata in a document that itself states that "While streamlined at its core, Warhammer 40,000 is a game of endless variety, and can involve nuanced circumstances that may give even experienced players pause. This commentary is a living resource of definitions, diagrams and examples intended to clarify some of the game’s finer points and resolve niche questions that might otherwise slow down the pace of battle." Adding an entirely new clause to a rule to determine whether a unit is eligible to shoot is not a clarification, it is the wholesale changing of the rules.
For all the "rules mush" that modern 40k and Age of Sigmar have, I find them much simpler to play than many other games that try to have less wordy/more "naturally worded" rules.
Especially Horus Heresy 2.0, which would really benefit from the "rules mush", as with 40k/AoS at least there are working rules when you get past the wordiness of it (most of the time).
Rihgu wrote: For all the "rules mush" that modern 40k and Age of Sigmar have, I find them much simpler to play than many other games that try to have less wordy/more "naturally worded" rules.
Especially Horus Heresy 2.0, which would really benefit from the "rules mush", as with 40k/AoS at least there are working rules when you get past the wordiness of it (most of the time).
HH needs exactly nothing from the current 40k ruleset. I'll accept the complaints about the lack of factions, but there are no 10th edition rules that HH 2.0 needs.
Yeah, I can't look at the absolute rules mush that is the Tau "For the Greater Good" ability and square that with the game being meant to be simple.
the rule is actually super simple, but GW is incapable of not using lawyer-speech when writing rules.
Same with all the secondaries and missions, why do they take up more text than MTG cards for something as simple as
"Xpts per enemy unit killed on an objective"
"Xpts per action in table corners"
"Xpts per friendly unit in your opponent's deployment zone"
Rihgu wrote: For all the "rules mush" that modern 40k and Age of Sigmar have, I find them much simpler to play than many other games that try to have less wordy/more "naturally worded" rules.
Especially Horus Heresy 2.0, which would really benefit from the "rules mush", as with 40k/AoS at least there are working rules when you get past the wordiness of it (most of the time).
HH needs exactly nothing from the current 40k ruleset. I'll accept the complaints about the lack of factions, but there are no 10th edition rules that HH 2.0 needs.
Yeah, I can't look at the absolute rules mush that is the Tau "For the Greater Good" ability and square that with the game being meant to be simple.
the rule is actually super simple, but GW is incapable of not using lawyer-speech when writing rules. Same with all the secondaries and missions, why do they take up more text than MTG cards for something as simple as
"Xpts per enemy unit killed on an objective" "Xpts per action in table corners" "Xpts per friendly unit in your opponent's deployment zone"
It is simple, and I have rewritten it myself before to make it a lot clearer, but the way they word it makes it almost impossible to parse on first reading as they are constantly changing between which units they are talking about. Like, second paragraph. First line introduces one unit, then the second introduces another unit. The third sentence then begins with "This unit..." which of those two units does it mean? Normal english would say that it refers to the second unit as that is the most recently defined possibility that "This unit" could refer to, but nope, it actually means the first unit. If I walked up to you and said "This is Greg. This is Dave. He's a doctor." Which of Greg or Dave is the doctor?
They could have written it clearly while also writing it more concisely.
I feel like the modern hyper-verbose rules are, ironically, the result of them trying to be clearer. Like, the way most of the core rules are written in 10th seems like an attempt to avoid vague wording/unclear rules by spelling everything out in painful detail.
Remember all the FAQs of yester-year that were basically just there to clear up ambiguous wording?
But then you sometimes get things like FtGG where the kept the wordy tone of the other rules but forgot to also make the spelled-out rules readable.
Wyzilla wrote: The interviews with them lay out that they make the game with the intention of everyone just bashing stuff together without terrible amount of structure, and then the actual 40k players start shouting matches because your dudes aren't WYSIWYG or your loadout isn't legal. I don't think it's so much just ease of play as the community has infected itself with a strangely legalistic culture that even the game makers never intended for which creates some of the huge problems 40k suffers from, 10e being gak or not.
This doesn't track with the absurdly legalistic manner in which rules are written, the fact that some of those rules-lawyer things actually stem from GW themselves (see: Warhammer World events requiring you update models to the latest base size), or the highly technical, prescriptive nature of wargear and unit options to enforce strict NMNR.
10th Ed is not written as a 'pick up your dudes and go' sort of ruleset. They might claim it is, but it isn't. The most charitable way to interpret it is that they want to make a casual beer-and-pretzels game but instead respond to market demand and now we have Metawatch articles and quarterly balance updates based on tournament results.
Yeah, I can't look at the absolute rules mush that is the Tau "For the Greater Good" ability and square that with the game being meant to be simple.
Text in full, in case anyone wants to see for themselves:
Spoiler:
If your Army Faction is T’au Empire, then in your Shooting phase units from your army can work in pairs to help each other target specific enemy units. When they do this, one unit is the Observer unit and the other is their Guided unit. The enemy they are targeting is called their Spotted unit.
Each time you select this unit to shoot, if it is not an Observer unit, it can use this ability. If it does, select one other friendly unit with this ability that is also eligible to shoot (excluding Fortification, Battleshocked and Observer units). Until the end of the phase, this unit is considered a Guided unit, and that friendly unit is considered an Observer unit. Then select one enemy unit that is visible to both your units to be their Spotted unit.
Until the end of the phase:
■ Each time a model in a Guided unit makes an attack that targets their Spotted unit, improve the Ballistic Skill characteristic of the attack by 1 and, if their Observer unit has the Markerlight keyword, the attack has the [IGNORES COVER] ability.
■ Each time a model in a Guided unit makes an attack that does not target their Spotted unit, worsen the Ballistic Skill characteristic of the attack by 1.
This is also one of the reasons they needed to errata in that a unit that had shot was no longer eligible to shoot*, as before that you could just daisy chain all your units by selecting the previous unit you shot with as the observer for the next unit.
*Not that they actually did that, but rather hid the errata in a document that itself states that "While streamlined at its core, Warhammer 40,000 is a game of endless variety, and can involve nuanced circumstances that may give even experienced players pause. This commentary is a living resource of definitions, diagrams and examples intended to clarify some of the game’s finer points and resolve niche questions that might otherwise slow down the pace of battle." Adding an entirely new clause to a rule to determine whether a unit is eligible to shoot is not a clarification, it is the wholesale changing of the rules.
when they "fixed "FtGG instead of it being in the rules commentary all they needed was an errata to add a third bullet stateing that a unit which has shot is not "eligible to shoot" for the remainder of that shooting phase.
when I saw a rules "commentary" document, to me thats designers fluff about why they wrote what they did, it shouldn't be "rule book: part 2 the bits we cut out"
A huge problem with how the current rules are written is that GW seems to think that merely by adopting some weird pseudo-legalese layout and verbiage they'll create a more streamlined and clearer game. I'm convinced they don't actually understand why they should be doing it - it's just how most other games work so they've copied it.
For example, they list out the sequence for shooting, but fail to write rules that hook into that sequence properly, or end up with the sequence not making sense because they haven't actually thought about how it works, they've merely decided it had to be written in a certain way. They've managed to get the worst of both worlds. It's wordy, convoluted and often still unclear even once you've gone to the hassle of parsing it.
so a little update regarding jumping to 5th due to my mate wanting to play it.
The good:
Lots of options for customisation
a clean set of rules as its all out and available
plenty of character, tone and artwork make this edition ooze theme.
The Bad:
Wound allocation rules are just bad and open to abuse.
balance is all over the place, the later codex's are very powerful while the early ones are usually bad, Chaos marines especially are pretty bad in 5th from what we are seeing.
redundant options, while plenty of options is good, too many is bad, some books just verge over to bad, for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.
Is it fun, absolutely, it seems to play better than 10th in terms of speed and flow but that is likely down to how familiar it is compared to things such as HH 1.0, there is also the added bonus that it will be easy to slot in newer units to 5th due to the USR system, we are going to add the new Necron and Tyranid units for our next game.
for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.
4th or 5th Tyranid codex? I have heard about people using the 4th one for their 5th ed games, it is rare to hear anyone praise the 5th one (because it sucked so much).
balance is all over the place, the later codex's are very powerful while the early ones are usually bad, Chaos marines especially are pretty bad in 5th from what we are seeing.
Because CSM didn't get a 5th edition book. They had one that came out almost a year prior to 5th edition launching. It had some decent builds (twin lash princes and oblits), but was extremely bland compared to the 3.5 dex. The sixth edition CSM book was essentially codex Heldrake. I think there are some fan dexes for CSM that will give you a better experience in 5th.
for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.
4th or 5th Tyranid codex? I have heard about people using the 4th one for their 5th ed games, it is rare to hear anyone praise the 5th one (because it sucked so much).
I remember enjoying games with the 5th edition one. Iirc, that was where they dropped some of the biomorph customization (weapons with strength based on the model strength, maybe bonded exoskeleton, etc.), but wasn't that also where they introduced the tervigon, hive guard, venomthropes. and maybe the mawloc/trygon? Of course, I mostly ran 'stealer spam at the time, so maybe I'm misremembering.
I remember enjoying games with the 5th edition one. Iirc, that was where they dropped some of the biomorph customization (weapons with strength based on the model strength, maybe bonded exoskeleton, etc.), but wasn't that also where they introduced the tervigon, hive guard, venomthropes. and maybe the mawloc/trygon? Of course, I mostly ran 'stealer spam at the time, so maybe I'm misremembering.
No, you're correct. The 5th edition book introduced the trygons, mawlocs, hive guard, mycetic spore pods, tervigons etc. It also nuked the carnifex to oblivion.
It also introduced the annoying tendency that no Tyranid creature was allowed to have T7+ or 2+ Sv and took away the ID protection from Synapse (which basically neutered Tyranid Warriors).
And it pretty much put all good options in the Elite slot.
Formosa wrote: s
The Bad:
Wound allocation rules are just bad and open to abuse.
That's a relatively easy fix - assign wounds in order of AP from 1 through -. That mostly prevents wound stacking.
Beyond that, 5th ed's wound allocation actually soft-discourages MSU builds, which is something GW has otherwise generally failed to do, by making it so that special weapons won't always be the last to die.
Then you're just left with the issues caused by Nobs and Paladins (which could have been prevented by not giving them such over the top weapon/wargear options).
Wyldhunt wrote:I feel like the modern hyper-verbose rules are, ironically, the result of them trying to be clearer. Like, the way most of the core rules are written in 10th seems like an attempt to avoid vague wording/unclear rules by spelling everything out in painful detail.
That's exactly what it is. But if you write rules in a way that is difficult to parse for the layman just to ensure no rules-lawyer edge cases, I don't think you can reasonably claim that you're writing a casual beer-and-pretzels set-up-your-dudes-and-smash-them-together sort of game.
The 'naturally' written rules of old- and then big FAQs to clarify things- is what casual games tend to look like. Just play the game and roll off if there's a dispute, then check the FAQ later.
Formosa wrote:so a little update regarding jumping to 5th due to my mate wanting to play it.
The good:
Lots of options for customisation
a clean set of rules as its all out and available
plenty of character, tone and artwork make this edition ooze theme.
The Bad:
Wound allocation rules are just bad and open to abuse.
balance is all over the place, the later codex's are very powerful while the early ones are usually bad, Chaos marines especially are pretty bad in 5th from what we are seeing.
redundant options, while plenty of options is good, too many is bad, some books just verge over to bad, for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.
Is it fun, absolutely, it seems to play better than 10th in terms of speed and flow but that is likely down to how familiar it is compared to things such as HH 1.0, there is also the added bonus that it will be easy to slot in newer units to 5th due to the USR system, we are going to add the new Necron and Tyranid units for our next game.
I suggest you try 5th Ed core rules using your choice of 3rd/3.5/4th Ed codices. You'll miss out on the stuff introduced in 5th, particularly for Tyranids (though you can probably backport it without too much trouble), but it greatly helps the balance and cheese.
for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.
4th or 5th Tyranid codex? I have heard about people using the 4th one for their 5th ed games, it is rare to hear anyone praise the 5th one (because it sucked so much).
Indeed that is what our group does, 4th is superior in every way. same with chaos marines we use the 3.5 codex in our 5th ed games and it works fine. no chaos player will use any other dex for obvious reasons.
I remember enjoying games with the 5th edition one. Iirc, that was where they dropped some of the biomorph customization (weapons with strength based on the model strength, maybe bonded exoskeleton, etc.), but wasn't that also where they introduced the tervigon, hive guard, venomthropes. and maybe the mawloc/trygon? Of course, I mostly ran 'stealer spam at the time, so maybe I'm misremembering.
No, you're correct. The 5th edition book introduced the trygons, mawlocs, hive guard, mycetic spore pods, tervigons etc. It also nuked the carnifex to oblivion.
It was a cash grab because at that point every nid player had a ton of carnifexes and they wanted you to buy the new shiny, especially after they moved the trygon from a FW model to a plastic kit. it is super easy to shoehorn them in to the 4th ed dex rules.
A note on wound allocation, we just use the 4th ed rules instead-owning player applies wounds, wounded models must die first (for multi-wound units). fixes all the problems in that regard.
2 big 40K guys came in today, one was getting rid of his space marines and ork armies, he is tired of 40K and is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look. the second guy had a huge blood angels and an ork army and he is also getting out because he hates 10th and where the game is going and is not motivated to stay in the game anymore.
2 big 40K guys came in today, one was getting rid of his space marines and ork armies, he is tired of 40K and is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look. the second guy had a huge blood angels and an ork army and he is also getting out because he hates 10th and where the game is going and is not motivated to stay in the game anymore.
Did you try to get either of them to join your Oldhammer group? The latter individual definitely sounds like someone who might be interested.
Rihgu wrote:
aphyon wrote: [He] is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look.
Many would say that this was the true soul of 40K the whole time
Yes, indeed. The 8th Legion is definitely the "soul" of 40k.
2 big 40K guys came in today, one was getting rid of his space marines and ork armies, he is tired of 40K and is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look. the second guy had a huge blood angels and an ork army and he is also getting out because he hates 10th and where the game is going and is not motivated to stay in the game anymore.
Did you try to get either of them to join your Oldhammer group? The latter individual definitely sounds like someone who might be interested.
Rihgu wrote:
aphyon wrote: [He] is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look.
Many would say that this was the true soul of 40K the whole time
Yes, indeed. The 8th Legion is definitely the "soul" of 40k.
The first guy is a regular and he has played 5th with us, but i think he has hit 40K burnout, he still plays other stuff with us like battle tech. the second guy said he was going to come back and play 5th with us, but he is leaving the state in about 3 months so a short timer.
A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.
chaos0xomega wrote: A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.
So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?
It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.
chaos0xomega wrote: A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.
So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?
It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.
That is certainly possible but I will say that the design of 10th looks to be quite flawed, dumbed down (but not quite to 8th index era dumb), and I suspect that some of the "soul" of the game is gone for people who liked what 9th was.
Coming from the perspective of someone who liked 7th despite the laundry list of balance issues in that era of 40k, the transition into 8th sapped the entire fun out of playing the game as it felt less like a tactical battle (lose of facings, individual model cover, cover saves in general, 80% of game mechanics, area of effect weapons, units falling back, etc) and more like playing a game of Risk. It wasn't because of everything being new but that the game just felt hollow and it didn't matter if it was winning or losing, the fun was just bland. Whenever I get the chance to play a game of 7th, I'm having a blast because the game checks the boxes for being something fun to play (even playing the objectively underpowered Orks).
While I found the tactical depth of 8th/9th to be terrible, there was still some amount of depth when it came to list building but now that aspect for the most part has been neglected. Perhaps the current edition of the game lost that aspect that many people found enjoyable and what it replaced it with is just bland.
So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?
It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.
When the main faction of a setting gets an index update, which gives people the false idea on what units to invest for this edition, and then the codex comes and invalidates that and the ways of playing get even more restrictive there is always going to be a huge drop off of players. If someone had a 9th-10th knight lists, then GW "adjusted" the armies more then they adjusted eldar, some of the players are not going to want to play. If someone likes playing their RW or WS biker lists, they can not do so anymore. And in general the number of players that played the game to have their classic marine stuff is huge. They don't have to be primaris haters, but not everyone wants to buy 6 primaris dreadnoughts and 2-3 lancers(somehow, considering they are sold out everywhere) just to have a playing chance.
Play styles for some armies has huge impact too. GK for example are the non engaging faction, and because of that it lives and dies on terrain placement and ends up with players having super long turns, because everything has to be checked and rechecked twice. The "non tournament" games are even worse then they were in 8th and 9th, because now some armies don't have those "tournament" builds they could use as a crutch when playing armies with better rule sets, but not optimised. Now some match ups are decided pre game. And the game didn't get less complicated for casual players, especialy if they play vs an army with an actual pro active rule set. Good luck explaining to someone who plays once or twice per week how effcient the Eldar Avatar teleporting around is going to be vs his army. It may not be as bad as playing Ad Mecha in 9th, but not by much.
Matched play 9th 100% burned me out, it shifted most of the skill to listbuilding and hoping your book had noninteractive secondaries. After a few months of it, i was already done and refused to play anything but tempest of war. Now with 10th, it is IMO, the best edition since i started playing 40k.
While it does have very major issues (points/wargear system mostly) once you're on the actual tabletop, the game feels very fun to play, it's faster than before and i feel like the mental load required is quite diminished.
Coming from the perspective of someone who liked 7th despite the laundry list of balance issues in that era of 40k, the transition into 8th sapped the entire fun out of playing the game as it felt less like a tactical battle (lose of facings, individual model cover, cover saves in general, 80% of game mechanics, area of effect weapons, units falling back, etc) and more like playing a game of Risk. It wasn't because of everything being new but that the game just felt hollow and it didn't matter if it was winning or losing, the fun was just bland. Whenever I get the chance to play a game of 7th, I'm having a blast because the game checks the boxes for being something fun to play (even playing the objectively underpowered Orks).
Dakka would have you believe, "people that enjoyed 7th edition, or any edition with horrible balance, don't exists." Competitive mindsets are going to break any game they touch because their goal is to optimize win % and not to optimize fun %. I too really enjoyed my games of 7th edition, but I surrounded myself with players of like-minded individuals. We weren't trying to bring the most crunchy lists with the goal to win the best, instead we brought what we thought was cool or fun regardless of perceived "value" the unit would provide to a competitive player.
For all the decisions the rules team has made from 7th to 8th that I disagree with, the one that stands out the most was supporting the "three systems of play" nonsense.
Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting. When I suggested they run narrative events where winning isn't the primary goal, they all scoff that if the game isn't balanced then it isn't worth playing. The irony seems lost on these types since they won't play a game that they do not perceive as balanced, yet they aren't willing to admit that matched play is not balanced.
Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.
A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun. Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO
Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.
A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun. Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO
Furthermore, while it's certainly not top tier, 60 plaguebearers is pretty good from a competitive player's mindset. You could win games pretty solidly just by standing in circles and deep striking in corners, without doing any damage and even taking a lot of casualties. I'm finding that standing in circles isn't the most engaging/fun gameplay, though, so even if I win by doing exactly that and having units that do it well, it doesn't feel like a good win.
chaos0xomega wrote: A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.
So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?
It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.
I think that's probably a good take. That's kind of what happened to me, I was a mid-tier competitive player through 5th, wasn't going to major tournaments but was doing well locally and managed to beat some of the guys who were considered top tier players when they came out to our events, etc. 6th released and on top of me not actually liking the rules all that much, it knocked me off my pedestal and I struggled to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and just... burned out. I was already exhausted by competitive play in 5th - it was the kind of thing where I'd play a 3 round tournament on a Saturday and I wouldn't want to touch the game again for another couple weeks, probably a couple months by the time 5th was done, but 6th just did me in.
Anyway, yeah. I think there's an element of frustration probably at play, the cracks were showing for many of the guys I know who are falling out now during 9th. I think the magnitude of change to go from 9th to 10th is probably more mental load than they can handle at this point. The changes during 9th were small but frequent, a lot of them were having trouble keeping track of the latest by the end of the edition and jumbling up revisions as they played. That frustration probably built upon itself and 10th is just the final straw.
Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.
A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun. Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO
Furthermore, while it's certainly not top tier, 60 plaguebearers is pretty good from a competitive player's mindset. You could win games pretty solidly just by standing in circles and deep striking in corners, without doing any damage and even taking a lot of casualties. I'm finding that standing in circles isn't the most engaging/fun gameplay, though, so even if I win by doing exactly that and having units that do it well, it doesn't feel like a good win.
Not really, 10 plaguebearer has a pretty damn huge footprint thats easily screenable, and you still need to be able to kill your opponent to win at 40k. And in a book where nurglings exist, t heres no reason to run plaguebearers for a comp player
chaos0xomega wrote: A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.
So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?
It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.
I think that's probably a good take. That's kind of what happened to me, I was a mid-tier competitive player through 5th, wasn't going to major tournaments but was doing well locally and managed to beat some of the guys who were considered top tier players when they came out to our events, etc. 6th released and on top of me not actually liking the rules all that much, it knocked me off my pedestal and I struggled to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and just... burned out. I was already exhausted by competitive play in 5th - it was the kind of thing where I'd play a 3 round tournament on a Saturday and I wouldn't want to touch the game again for another couple weeks, probably a couple months by the time 5th was done, but 6th just did me in.
Anyway, yeah. I think there's an element of frustration probably at play, the cracks were showing for many of the guys I know who are falling out now during 9th. I think the magnitude of change to go from 9th to 10th is probably more mental load than they can handle at this point. The changes during 9th were small but frequent, a lot of them were having trouble keeping track of the latest by the end of the edition and jumbling up revisions as they played. That frustration probably built upon itself and 10th is just the final straw.
There's probably some truth to that, although I've actually found 10th to be less mentally draining than 9th. In 9th, I had to juggle so many different subfaction rules plus keep dozens of strats in mind at a time, plus remembering what warlord traits and relics were in play, plus the missions functionally had 7 objectives floating around at once (the primary plus 3 secondaries per player).
10th didn't do away with any of those, but it did reduce them all a bit. Subfactions exist, but we're not doing the mix-and-match thing any more. Strats exist, but you only have to worry about a handful of them, plus they're tied to your detachment's theme; which I personally find makes it easier to remember vaguely what strats my opponent has. Enhancements are basically our new warlord traits/relics, and so far it seems like there's usually only one or two of them in a given game. The missions are still more complicated than in, say, 8th, but they are just a bit less busy.
All of which has, so far, made 10th a lot easier for me to enjoy. In 9th, I was constantly stressing out about whether I'd forgotten to do X or use strat Y or moved onto the correct object for mission Z. Lots of thinking about stuff on the cards rather than on the table. In 10th, I'm spending more time thinking about the models on the table. I find myself wondering whether I should fall back with Unit A so I can shoot with Unit B rather than wondering if I can use strat 1 to trigger ability 2 to use strat 3 to pull off secondary 4.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Matched play 9th 100% burned me out, it shifted most of the skill to listbuilding and hoping your book had noninteractive secondaries. After a few months of it, i was already done and refused to play anything but tempest of war. Now with 10th, it is IMO, the best edition since i started playing 40k.
While it does have very major issues (points/wargear system mostly) once you're on the actual tabletop, the game feels very fun to play, it's faster than before and i feel like the mental load required is quite diminished.
Maybe it is faction dependened then. Because GK , with psychic powers removed, streamlined weapons etc not just feel, but also take much longer turns, then in 9th. The math, especialy vs factions with free rapid ingress, or out of sequance movment, as a GK has an insane level of complexity and requiers full and in depth knowladge of the opposing army and all of its rules and rules interactions.
I do know a lot of csm and eldar players, who are extremly happy about 10th. The unhappy people mostly just left and no longer play w40k. OPR for some reason had a huge influnx of players, and I thought it would be dead.
chaos0xomega wrote: A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.
So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?
It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.
I think that's probably a good take. That's kind of what happened to me, I was a mid-tier competitive player through 5th, wasn't going to major tournaments but was doing well locally and managed to beat some of the guys who were considered top tier players when they came out to our events, etc. 6th released and on top of me not actually liking the rules all that much, it knocked me off my pedestal and I struggled to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and just... burned out. I was already exhausted by competitive play in 5th - it was the kind of thing where I'd play a 3 round tournament on a Saturday and I wouldn't want to touch the game again for another couple weeks, probably a couple months by the time 5th was done, but 6th just did me in.
Anyway, yeah. I think there's an element of frustration probably at play, the cracks were showing for many of the guys I know who are falling out now during 9th. I think the magnitude of change to go from 9th to 10th is probably more mental load than they can handle at this point. The changes during 9th were small but frequent, a lot of them were having trouble keeping track of the latest by the end of the edition and jumbling up revisions as they played. That frustration probably built upon itself and 10th is just the final straw.
There's probably some truth to that, although I've actually found 10th to be less mentally draining than 9th. In 9th, I had to juggle so many different subfaction rules plus keep dozens of strats in mind at a time, plus remembering what warlord traits and relics were in play, plus the missions functionally had 7 objectives floating around at once (the primary plus 3 secondaries per player).
10th didn't do away with any of those, but it did reduce them all a bit. Subfactions exist, but we're not doing the mix-and-match thing any more. Strats exist, but you only have to worry about a handful of them, plus they're tied to your detachment's theme; which I personally find makes it easier to remember vaguely what strats my opponent has. Enhancements are basically our new warlord traits/relics, and so far it seems like there's usually only one or two of them in a given game. The missions are still more complicated than in, say, 8th, but they are just a bit less busy.
All of which has, so far, made 10th a lot easier for me to enjoy. In 9th, I was constantly stressing out about whether I'd forgotten to do X or use strat Y or moved onto the correct object for mission Z. Lots of thinking about stuff on the cards rather than on the table. In 10th, I'm spending more time thinking about the models on the table. I find myself wondering whether I should fall back with Unit A so I can shoot with Unit B rather than wondering if I can use strat 1 to trigger ability 2 to use strat 3 to pull off secondary 4.
Agreed, but if you were a competitive player you lived, breathed, and died by the 9th edition rules, you knew them like the back of your hand, even if you were put through the ringer trying to keep up with the changes. 10th is a pretty substantial change to the rules, even if it doesn't seem that way. While GW reduced the mental overhead, if you were that invested into 9th, then learning 10th is like trying to learn Chinese after getting a Masters in German (or maybe Norsk or Dutch instead of Chinese, since there is some commonality, but its still a different language). You're tired, you're exhausted, you've mastered one thing, and now you're being asked to start over from nothing to master a new thing, and you just don't want to do it anymore.
Think of it in terms of spectrums and thresholds. Theres a spectrum of effort that exists in terms of learning rules - changes to points and minor revisions to special rules or scenarios exist at one end of the spectrum, learning a whole new game at another end of the spectrum. Jumping from 9th to 10th sits closer to "learning a new game" than it does "learning new points" or "learning how Armor of Contempt works". We all have a threshold as to how much effort we are willing to put into this before the level of effort exceeds our threshold of willingness or motivation to do so. That threshold shifts and changes over time depending on a number of variables, I suspect that for a lot of people the constant changes in 9th (and arguably 8th) progressively reduced that threshold over time (i.e. the process of "burning out"). I know in my own case I became increasingly frustrated with the pace of changes, as it felt like every time I was starting to get comfortable with the latest iteration of the rules GW threw a curveball that required me to rewrite my list because points went up and I had to start over and retool my list, often having to buy some new stuff to get my list back into a place where it could still do the things I needed it to do, etc. As someone that hasn't had much opportunity to play as a result of life events, it was an even bigger slap in the face because it meant that instead of playing games I was "doing work" to try to retool so that I could play games, further reducing the number of games I could play - and when I could play games, the games were often unsatisfying because I couldn't bring my "A game" as I had to familiarize myself with the shifts and changes in the meta and understand why I was struggling to win games in the present with a faction/list that was doing so well just 3-4 months prior.
I would guess that for many competitive players the changes to 10th which have been met with unfavorably (removing wargear points for example, reduction in strategems which seems to be something many competitive players disliked as well) probably resulted in their individual thresholds more or less bottoming out - thereby completely fulfilling that "burnout" process. I.E. - they look at the changes to the game they dislike and all the work they need to put in to learn how to play the new version of the game and say "man its not even worth the effort, this is too much for me to handle right now". As a result, the effort to learn 10th, which already was on the far end of the effort spectrum, is also well above many competitives players tolerance threshold, and they just quit rather than putting the effort in to learn the new thing.
I see the same parallels with my experience, the jump from 4th to 5th was relatively easy because 5th ed was mostly just a cleanup and tweaking of the 4th edition rules - my tolerance threshold was high and the effort required sat on the lower end of the spectrum. Then came 6th - I liked some of the changes, and disliked others, the tolerance threshold sat somewhere in the middle, but the effort required was higher than the change from 4th to 5th, so I was on shaky ground with 6th and not enjoying my time with it, and then they announced 7th and 7th doubled down on many of the things that I hated about 6th with few real redeeming qualities, and that tolerance threshold dropped real low, even if the effort level was on the shallow end of the spectrum, and I just quit. I came back in 8th after sitting 7th out because I adequately ran through my cooldown meter over the intervening years, because I was fully onboard with the vast majority of changes they announced to the game and because I wasn't carrying the baggage of a previous edition of the game with me, having sat out the preceding 3-5 years or whatever, my tolerance threshold was very high, and even though there was some effort involved with learning the new rules system, it wasn't a put-off. Likewise 9th - I had a pretty high tolerance threshold still as I really enjoyed 8th (though started getting annoyed towards the end when they started leaning further into a quarterly update cadence), and the changes were insubstantial so they sat at the shallow end of the spectrum, so making the transition was easy for me and many others - but then GW really hit my tolerance threshold repeatedly with constant updates and the ever-increasing bloat in the design of the new codecies, and I actually basically fell out of 9th by the end of the edition, was mostly just holding on knowing that a new edition was imminent in the hope that it would be something I could jive with.
And it kind of was. I liked most of the changes, at least initially. The effort needed to jump into 10th from 9th isn't nothing but its largely insubstantial, its an easy game to wrap ones head around. The removal of many of the worst aspects of 9th (the bloat) and the changes I mostly agree with (wargear points are overrated, IMO, sorry not sorry) pushed my threshold up enough for me to make the jump, but if I had a different perspective on the state of the game I could see me being pushed out of it (and to some extent I'm starting to sour on it - some of the things I liked upfront I'm finding are not the gumdrops and lemonade I thought they would be, like I find listbuilding tedious and boring now instead of an activity I could spend hours fixating on and tinkering with in my downtime).
Anyway, point is that even though 10th is an easier to learn, less intimidating ruleset, if you are coming into it drained by GWs constant BS and the absurd pace of rules revisions in the previous editions, and looking at the changes unfavorably, even though its an easy to learn set of rules your motivation for doing so is basically nonexistent and you cant be bothered.
Personally, im split on 10th. I didnt play any 9th and only played 8th before for the most part and while I enjoy some amount of simplification, i feel like the result isnt great because its still a 3-4 hour game at two players. I think their best use for those simpler rules is to go more into the direction crusades and Boarding Actions do if giving these cool, tweaked formats to the core rules of 40k rather than making a spinoff doomed to be abandonned.
A simpler, more direct ruleset allows to do these things and GW should capitalize on that as the edition goes on imo.
I do admit the gear and army systems are really restrictive and full of old legacy gear choices now invalidated by the fact almost every unit has a best gear option for no extra.
One thing I havent seen mentionned is the lack of terrain rules. There's only walls and BoC terrain in the rules. No dangerous terrain, no impassable yet see-through terrain, nothing to cover some of the scenarios that terrain could do. I have all kinds of cool made-for terrain for things like turnip28 that are useless from a rules-perspective just because they dont block any LoS.
Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.
A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun.
That's because you're expecting more out of them than is reasonable.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO
They might not completely ruin games, but they do have a negative effect with this talk. People constantly hear this, they assume it's true, they then don't buy/use the units others keep claiming are bad.
This spreads & propagates. And then people complain that armies become more & more samey.
Now in a tourney? I don't give a damn if all your armies are cooky cutter, nothing but the "best" units, & you've all given up your free will on what to use because some YouTube guy declared x to be the way.
But then it seeps out into casual play....
Ok, so its bad if i don't bring plaguebearers in a casual game because people online are saying theyre bad?
How is that any different than me playing a few games with my plaguebearers, realising they don't contribute much to the game and then deciding not to bring them anymore?
VladimirHerzog wrote: Ok, so its bad if i don't bring plaguebearers in a casual game because people online are saying theyre bad?
How is that any different than me playing a few games with my plaguebearers, realising they don't contribute much to the game and then deciding not to bring them anymore?
This is fiddly to answer because it both makes no difference and it does.
On the one hand it makes no different mathematically - good is good, bad is bad and in a game built on numbers and tactics; if the numbers are bad the model is bad. This assumes a given situation and sometimes a unit is only bad in a certain situation and competitive play might well lean to an extreme that isn't present in a persons "local" game environment.
That said in general the patterns for good/bad are going to be fairly similar.
On the other hand what it can lead too is local players having armies beyond their skill level; or beyond the skill level of the isolated player group.
You can see this even more so in MTG and other card games where a "net list" might be a top tier list way way above what everyone else locally has. Everyone else might be beginner to intermediate level and mostly playing with "cards from a random pack"; if you then bring in a "net list" that's specifically crafted and is really good then a player can have a deck that's way above their skill level. Which of course means that their game performance gains a huge boost.
Now you can very well argue that this is just playing the game well, and it most certainly is. However we have to appreciate that not everyone wants to invest the same level of time and skill into a hobby. Some are totally fine being at beginner/intermediate level; or just want to have a steady advance of game skill from local game experience only.
So in a sense this is more of a potential group dynamic and game approach issue which can be terribly complicated or just boil down to different personal approaches to a hobby. It's also something much larger groups can often push past simply because there's a range of skills to suite. Whilst much smaller clubs could see more issue because you just don't have 20-30 other people to play against.
So I can see both sides and both arguments. There's no denying that the net can act like a big skill booster if used the right way. Again there is nothing wrong in this; its not outright bad; heck you can argue that the gretaer organisation and sharing if ideas REALLY helps push the quality within the game world and thus the experience. Just look at how painting has come along in the last 30 years for the average person. At one time you had 2 or 3 books (2 of which were from GW); now you've dozens of books; thousands of video and written tutorials. etc..
VladimirHerzog wrote: Ok, so its bad if i don't bring plaguebearers in a casual game because people online are saying theyre bad?
No, it's bad when you don't bring them based only on what other people say.
It's bad when you bring them & then attach too much expectation to them.
I mean, they're M5/T5 demonic plague zombies with a 5++ save & a melee attack that currently come in units of 10. There's only so much that's ever going to do, so plan accordingly.
But if you like Plaguebearers for whatever reason? Then bring some along in a casual game.
VladimirHerzog wrote: How is that any different than me playing a few games with my plaguebearers, realising they don't contribute much to the game and then deciding not to bring them anymore?
Because you've decided that for yourself. You've determined that PBs don't work in your force/however you're trying to play. Will they work in someone else's force? {shugs}
ccs wrote: ...That's because you're expecting more out of them than is reasonable...
Who defines "reasonable"? If I buy models I like the look of and put them on the table and then get blown up without doing anything why is that my fault for expecting the models I like to not be garbage, and not GW's fault for making them garbage?
CCS, do you believe you should just... Not listen to advice?
Like, I do get that personal experience is the best. But if I'm starting a new force, should I just buy whatever I like the look of the most, and then find out that it's a one-way ticket to being facerolled because what I like and what's good are very different?
I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.
The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.
That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.
catbarf wrote: I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.
The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places the default way that people play.
It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options. That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO.
I mean... Ideally, a tournament list and a beginner list wouldn't have that much space between them.
I don't mind list-building giving you an edge, but it should be a MINOR edge. Like, if you take two equally-skilled players, one with a cutting-edge, super optimized tourney list; and the other with a basic list a competent individual made; it shouldn't be more than 60-40 in the tourney list's favor. Hopefully closer to 55-45.
JNAProductions wrote: I mean... Ideally, a tournament list and a beginner list wouldn't have that much space between them.
I don't mind list-building giving you an edge, but it should be a MINOR edge. Like, if you take two equally-skilled players, one with a cutting-edge, super optimized tourney list; and the other with a basic list a competent individual made; it shouldn't be more than 60-40 in the tourney list's favor. Hopefully closer to 55-45.
Hey, I agree wholeheartedly, that's the way it ought to be. But 40K's been around a long time and it hasn't happened yet.
And even if it were that way, I'm dead certain we'd still see units described as 'good' and 'trash' on the basis of minor differences, because I would sooner expect peace in the Middle East than for competitive 40K discussion to become 'everything's great, no need to hyper-obsess over options, take what you want and you can make it work'.
The present reality is that more than once I've seen a casual community turn into a competitive arms race because a couple of players take it seriously enough that everyone else can either try to keep up or start losing a lot, and that's just not everyone's cup of tea. Even in a less cutthroat environment, it's lame if you're facing the same archetypical lists over and over again because people are scared to take options that aren't considered meta. Knowing that a unit underperforms and taking that into account when you build your list is one thing; mistaking 'underperforms' for 'unusable garbage' is another, and then building an army specifically to be competitively effective is a deliberate decision.
The present reality is that more than once I've seen a casual community turn into a competitive arms race because a couple of players take it seriously enough that everyone else can either try to keep up or start losing a lot...
My FLGS ran a weekly league night for a long while. The exact nature of the league tended to change over time, but for a while it was a ladder league. The end result was that we had about 3 or 4 people who would just be playing each other with cutthroat competitive lists while the rest of us floated up and down in our lower ranks, trying out gimmicky fluff lists and talking out the narrative for our games.
And then you occasionally had the one unlucky guy who happened to be at the top of the low-rankers and thus ended up playing one of the high-rankers for the night.
Not making a point here or anything. Just sharing an amusing anecdote about competitive and non-competitive players inhabiting the same ecosystem.
problem starts if one player needs to have the top tier net-list to even have a chance against the gimmicky fluff list from another
that there is a competitive meta were you only take A-tier units and never consider B-tier or lower as an option is not a problem in general
that one faction needs to take all A-tier units t even have a chance against another factions C-tier is a problem that hits casual gamers much harder than competitive ones
It doesn't solve everything, but running leagues where you have to have 3 different army lists, each 50%+ different to the next and then you roll 1d3 to see which one you use, tempers people's competitiveness and prevents too much overt meta gaming.
People who are more causal care less about it and it creates more interesting gaming match ups and extends the variety for longer.
JNAProductions wrote: I mean... Ideally, a tournament list and a beginner list wouldn't have that much space between them.
I don't mind list-building giving you an edge, but it should be a MINOR edge. Like, if you take two equally-skilled players, one with a cutting-edge, super optimized tourney list; and the other with a basic list a competent individual made; it shouldn't be more than 60-40 in the tourney list's favor. Hopefully closer to 55-45.
Hey, I agree wholeheartedly, that's the way it ought to be. But 40K's been around a long time and it hasn't happened yet.
And even if it were that way, I'm dead certain we'd still see units described as 'good' and 'trash' on the basis of minor differences, because I would sooner expect peace in the Middle East than for competitive 40K discussion to become 'everything's great, no need to hyper-obsess over options, take what you want and you can make it work'.
The present reality is that more than once I've seen a casual community turn into a competitive arms race because a couple of players take it seriously enough that everyone else can either try to keep up or start losing a lot, and that's just not everyone's cup of tea. Even in a less cutthroat environment, it's lame if you're facing the same archetypical lists over and over again because people are scared to take options that aren't considered meta. Knowing that a unit underperforms and taking that into account when you build your list is one thing; mistaking 'underperforms' for 'unusable garbage' is another, and then building an army specifically to be competitively effective is a deliberate decision.
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
The problem there is being able to recognize that what your opponent has is strong, or that they have satisfied the "please don't bring strong stuff" requirement, does require you to be somewhat more knowledgeable on the competitive scene than a truly casual player would be. Sure, a casual player could ask a more competitive player to "please don't bring THAT list", but that opponent might just swap out a tier 1 unit for a tier 2 unit. Hey, it's a different list, and doesn't specifically have that one unit you always complain about, right?
So at the point you're able to recognize what's strong and what's not, instead of going through the rigamarole of asking people to tone down their lists, why not just play at the level you're at yourself?
Your post weirdly seemingly conflates competitive with "high skill" and casual with "low skill", when that's not really the case. In my experience, players who bring net lists are trash at actually playing the game. High skill players are just in general more likely to a) be able to recognize themselves what makes their list so strong, and tone those aspects down either through gameplay itself or through changing the list b) have a better attitude & be willing to do so, whereas low skill players are going to want to farm their wins where they're getting them.
Wayniac wrote: I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.
With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.
I would not be surprised if most casual players just don't play at the LGS anymore, or at least don't play pick-up-games since the competitive seed has began to blossom.
Thing is, casual players can also end up with "OP tournament armies" between editions.
I'm not a tournament player (Except for the small 8-man ones we do in my LGS, which are more of a gameday than tournament) but i'm pretty much the raidboss of my LGS. I've been playing mostly chaos stuff since 8th, with Daemonless NightLords ever since i read the omnibus, now in 8th and 9th, chosen were bad yet i still ran them, now in 10th theyre finally strong and i look like i'm only brining them because of that. No, i just like my veterans.
GW is so inconsistent with its balance that i see multiple players bring units that were good/bad in older editions only for them be bad/good now, i don't think you can blame the players for that.
I think the problem with "build for casual" swings back to the extremes of the early days of Age of Sigmar when there were no points for games at all and it was a "take what you feel is right".
Essentially building for a victory is simple because it follows a set pattern of rules and concepts. Even if you don't understand the underlaying mathematics, you can pick up on "what's good" and "what's bad" as well as cobble together what works from your own player experiences.
It follows rules, has structure to it and is something most people can grasp.
Casual on the other hand, has no real foundation as such. It's a reason online you find very little "how to build a casual list" discussions because the foundations for it are widely variable.
Some groups will have some conventions for their own casual play; this might even come down to avoiding specific "its too good" models from even being taken. Some groups might have conventions that vary between matches; or which vary between players and more reflect the group trying to adapt their army building toward a kind of handicap system to account for varied skill and performance differences between armies (ergo they are building using matched play concepts, just not for all out victory).
Sometimes scenarios help give some structure. Eg a last-stand where one side has 1/4 the points of the other or such.
It's hard to pin down because its so insanely variable and because there aren't really any guidelines that you can establish which are universal
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
The problem there is being able to recognize that what your opponent has is strong, or that they have satisfied the "please don't bring strong stuff" requirement, does require you to be somewhat more knowledgeable on the competitive scene than a truly casual player would be. Sure, a casual player could ask a more competitive player to "please don't bring THAT list", but that opponent might just swap out a tier 1 unit for a tier 2 unit. Hey, it's a different list, and doesn't specifically have that one unit you always complain about, right?
This. The whole "tone down your list" thing is subjective and subject to interpretation, its essentially an unenforceable policy and one which easily results in hurt feelings and feelsbad if the maturity level of both parties is lacking. I've had this exact argument out with one of my super-competitive friends, who insists that casual play is too complicated because there are too many unwritte social rules to follow, such as "dont bring too powerful a list" but then also "what does too powerful a list mean" and "what does an appropriate list look like", etc. and he kind of has a point. Ask 100 people, get 100 answers, basically.In competitive, according to him, its more straightforward - he shows up with his best list, you show up with yours, and you play. If you feel bad, thats on you.
In my own experience, I have witnessed the casual crowd show up with absolutely bunkers busted lists which they were able to spin as being fluffy, likewise I've seen them play against people who took what were in my view perfectly fluffy casual lists which they then called cheesy powergamer lists for arbitrary reasons ("he took a land raider in a fluffy 2000 pt game, how dare he!").
At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.
This is the mentality around here. I've heard the same thing verbatim from countless players at my locals.
With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.
Agreed. In the case of my local community, the casual players all rebelled against the "narrative" format as being too unbalanced and most quit playing 40k altogether. The irony of course being that the narrative format, with its power levels and points, was intended to basically give players a freer hand in terms of how lists were built and how players approached the balance of their own games as opposed to locking them into the rigidity of the matched play points system. Prior to this though, they used to play games where they skipped points calculations entirely and set up games based on what they perceived as being cool and fluffy setpiece battles, etc. Its truly ironic that they were fine with this approach right up until GW tried offering them a system that more easily enabled it to occur outside of the context of pre-arranged planned in advanced games, and instead of accepting it as a tool they rejected the concept entirely and quit something that they invested decades of their lives into. Its part of the reason my signature here is what it is, because my experience with other gamers (of all stripes) within this community is overwhelmingly that everyone always hates the current state of the game, but also hates any changes made to try to improve it (even if its ones that they previously advocated for or which aligns with their gameplay philosophy.
Wayniac 811846 11610231 wrote: What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
And what else are they suppose to do, besides to quit the game and stop playing. Telling Jimmy that he has to take a month salary of his dad, or if he is a JIm his own, and now rebuy his army to be weak would requier some godlike persuasion powers. And I don't even know what the player is suppose to do, if his army is just powerful and it is just not possible to make that 2000pts list bad enough to face bad armies on equal footing. Force people to buy more models for different armies?
Wayniac wrote: I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Oh, I've also seen communities that 'enforce' casual-ness. It can be as simple as a verbalized edict that we're not here to play competitively, but it can also take form of bizarre house rules or game balance hot takes.
You know what sucks? Showing up with a casual, ordinary list and being told it's 'too competitive' because it contains Pyrovores, because someone at the club has gotten the idea in his head that they're super powerful, and if you insist on playing anyways you become That Guy.
Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.
This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.
The social contract involved in casual play is fragile if it isn't just an extension of your friend group, and I don't find it surprising at all that casual communities are so easily splintered.
Wayniac wrote: I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.
With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.
I would not be surprised if most casual players just don't play at the LGS anymore, or at least don't play pick-up-games since the competitive seed has began to blossom.
The community was always fragmented, they just didn't know it. This isn't just common among gaming communities by the way. It's something inherent to any large group of people. People are different. So many misunderstandings and conflicts happen due to people not realizing this and assuming they're not.
And what else are they suppose to do, besides to quit the game and stop playing. Telling Jimmy that he has to take a month salary of his dad, or if he is a JIm his own, and now rebuy his army to be weak would requier some godlike persuasion powers. And I don't even know what the player is suppose to do, if his army is just powerful and it is just not possible to make that 2000pts list bad enough to face bad armies on equal footing. Force people to buy more models for different armies?
40k isnt a cheap hobby, one should know this before getting in the game. It sucks but its the reality of things. Most people i know don't own only one faction, and if they do, they have way more than only 2000pts so they have options to flex into.
Alternatively, just ask your opponent to play something more relaxed if you feel like your army is that bad
The community was always fragmented, they just didn't know it. This isn't just common among gaming communities by the way. It's something inherent to any large group of people. People are different. So many misunderstandings and conflicts happen due to people not realizing this and assuming they're not.
Exactly this, my local playgroup that frequents the LGS weekly is about 10-15 people, but i see a lot more of random people i never see play in store buy some boxes while i'm there.
Kitchen table 40k is very much a thing, and a huge portion of the playerbase
I don't think I've ever seen someone actually struggle to tone down their list when they earnestly set out to do so. And in cases where a more experienced player doesn't have different units on-hand to swap out, I've seen them tone down their tactics; basically just playing sloppy or "role-playing" their army harder to make some fluffy but suboptimal decisions.
I also had a guy rage quit when he lost a tactical squad to 8th edition howling banshees (when they were considered really underwhelming) and then rant about how his opponent at his old store used to sweep every table with howling banshee spam. So uh. I think it's also valid to just avoid playing against certain people if your playstyles are "incompatible."
Wayniac wrote: I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Oh, I've also seen communities that 'enforce' casual-ness. It can be as simple as a verbalized edict that we're not here to play competitively, but it can also take form of bizarre house rules or game balance hot takes.
You know what sucks? Showing up with a casual, ordinary list and being told it's 'too competitive' because it contains Pyrovores, because someone at the club has gotten the idea in his head that they're super powerful, and if you insist on playing anyways you become That Guy.
Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.
This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.
The social contract involved in casual play is fragile if it isn't just an extension of your friend group, and I don't find it surprising at all that casual communities are so easily splintered.
Agreed with every word of this. i consider myself a casual, but this is what I've seen from other casuals who try to "enforce" casualty... casualness... whatever. And that pyrovore example is right on the nose. So often the arguments are over the most ridiculous thing, because someone believes that a particular unit which is widely considered to be absolute dog-gak is the most OP thing in an army.
I've definitely played with groups that are very outwardly hostile to the idea of competitive play, which was really surprising to me because usually the gatekeepy-ness is the other way around. The pendulum swings hard in both directions I guess .
Luckily most people just want everyone to have a good time. I found that as long as you put some effort into explaining what you enjoy about the hobby, just about everyone will understand. Again, the important thing is to realize that people are different. That's part of what makes this hobby great.
I used to get pretty annoyed at opponents who didn't paint their minis and showed absolutely zero interest in the lore and modeling aspects of the game. But eventually it became clear to me that they were just really enthusiastic about playing the game. They were drawn to the optimization and the puzzle-solving. And they liked the social aspects. They ended up teaching me a lot about becoming a better player.
Wayniac wrote: I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Oh, I've also seen communities that 'enforce' casual-ness. It can be as simple as a verbalized edict that we're not here to play competitively, but it can also take form of bizarre house rules or game balance hot takes.
You know what sucks? Showing up with a casual, ordinary list and being told it's 'too competitive' because it contains Pyrovores, because someone at the club has gotten the idea in his head that they're super powerful, and if you insist on playing anyways you become That Guy.
Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.
This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.
The social contract involved in casual play is fragile if it isn't just an extension of your friend group, and I don't find it surprising at all that casual communities are so easily splintered.
Agreed with every word of this. i consider myself a casual, but this is what I've seen from other casuals who try to "enforce" casualty... casualness... whatever. And that pyrovore example is right on the nose. So often the arguments are over the most ridiculous thing, because someone believes that a particular unit which is widely considered to be absolute dog-gak is the most OP thing in an army.
The tragedy here is, that all it would take for GW to maintain a minimum of accurate balance which should be possible. The issue is, GW would have to release the full new edition at once (all rules) and have them propperly playtested against each other.
catbarf wrote: I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.
The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.
That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.
This also manifests more intensely when the game lacks mechanical depth. If there is enough meaningful mechanical depth then you can get units to fill niche roles and take advantage of "soft factors" instead of the raw shoot, stab, save stats aka hard factors. When the game has dozens of units and they all basically boil down to their point cost vs killing/not dying ability then it becomes hard to justify using X unit when Y unit does the job better for the points cost.
I'll use an example with something like the Speeder Storm in 7th. It had the ability to be a dedicated transport for scouts but also its weapon was a large blast blinding attack. It wasn't very good for the points at killing things but being able to effectively flash bang multiple enemy units was quite impactful despite it not actually being all that good at removing models from the table (unless they were something like gaunts, Boyz, guardsmen, etc). It being a relatively cheap transport skimmer, it they shot at it then it could just jink and waste some of their shooting. In the blandscape that is modern 40k, its Cerberus launcher is effectively the same thing as about two basic bolters and the whole thing has paper thin defense.
catbarf wrote: I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.
The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.
That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.
This also manifests more intensely when the game lacks mechanical depth. If there is enough meaningful mechanical depth then you can get units to fill niche roles and take advantage of "soft factors" instead of the raw shoot, stab, save stats aka hard factors. When the game has dozens of units and they all basically boil down to their point cost vs killing/not dying ability then it becomes hard to justify using X unit when Y unit does the job better for the points cost.
I'll use an example with something like the Speeder Storm in 7th. It had the ability to be a dedicated transport for scouts but also its weapon was a large blast blinding attack. It wasn't very good for the points at killing things but being able to effectively flash bang multiple enemy units was quite impactful despite it not actually being all that good at removing models from the table (unless they were something like gaunts, Boyz, guardsmen, etc). It being a relatively cheap transport skimmer, it they shot at it then it could just jink and waste some of their shooting. In the blandscape that is modern 40k, its Cerberus launcher is effectively the same thing as about two basic bolters and the whole thing has paper thin defense.
While it sounds like the speeder storm didn't get translated over very well, I will say that I feel like 10th does a much better job of adding in "soft factors" than at least some of the previous editions. I'm mostly thinking of special rules like guardian defenders being able to generate fate dice for the army, rippers/scarabs being able to reduce the OC of enemy units, etc. We could probably go harder in that direction (I'd love to see debuff weapons like blinding weapons and haywire-as-stuns come back), but I do feel like 10th is better about including "soft factors" than 8th or 9th were.
catbarf wrote: I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.
The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.
That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.
This also manifests more intensely when the game lacks mechanical depth. If there is enough meaningful mechanical depth then you can get units to fill niche roles and take advantage of "soft factors" instead of the raw shoot, stab, save stats aka hard factors. When the game has dozens of units and they all basically boil down to their point cost vs killing/not dying ability then it becomes hard to justify using X unit when Y unit does the job better for the points cost.
I'll use an example with something like the Speeder Storm in 7th. It had the ability to be a dedicated transport for scouts but also its weapon was a large blast blinding attack. It wasn't very good for the points at killing things but being able to effectively flash bang multiple enemy units was quite impactful despite it not actually being all that good at removing models from the table (unless they were something like gaunts, Boyz, guardsmen, etc). It being a relatively cheap transport skimmer, it they shot at it then it could just jink and waste some of their shooting. In the blandscape that is modern 40k, its Cerberus launcher is effectively the same thing as about two basic bolters and the whole thing has paper thin defense.
Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.
This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.
This. I first bought my Tau in 3rd, played them all through 4th and 5th, then along comes the 6th edition codex and the Riptide. Suddenly Tau are OP and, even though I've still to this day never owned a Riptide, I got tarred with that brush by many of the more "casual" players in that store because they have heard that Tau are the new hotness (and also coupled with the typical "they don't belong in my grimdark!" bollocks) and that's where they stop listening.
The stuff about toning down your list/whatever is the MAIN reason I stopped playing pick-up 40k and focused on a core group of 4-5 players that:
I don't NEED to have a conversation about what our expectations for the game are.
We know that the other player may not bring a "tourney" list but it's not necessarily gonna be "weak"
EVERYTHING IS WYSIWYG!
The one fun thing about pick-up 40k is quickly learning whom NOT to play.
I'd rather sit there not having fun than sitting there playing a game AND not having fun.
Wyldhunt wrote: While it sounds like the speeder storm didn't get translated over very well, I will say that I feel like 10th does a much better job of adding in "soft factors" than at least some of the previous editions. I'm mostly thinking of special rules like guardian defenders being able to generate fate dice for the army, rippers/scarabs being able to reduce the OC of enemy units, etc. We could probably go harder in that direction (I'd love to see debuff weapons like blinding weapons and haywire-as-stuns come back), but I do feel like 10th is better about including "soft factors" than 8th or 9th were.
I agree that 10th Ed has done a much better job than the previous two editions of giving each unit something interesting it can do that can't be easily boiled down to raw numerical efficiency. However, the monkey's paw curls one finger as this is primarily accomplished through a gakload of special rules that add back in much of the cognitive burden that the streamlining of subfactions and stratagems removed. It works, it's just a very 'artificial' solution.
Not to put words in Vankraken's mouth, but when I think of soft factors in wargames I tend to think more about capabilities that arise organically from the core rules, where a unit might have certain stats (or even just utility from existing) that don't directly relate to combat effectiveness but are important considerations nonetheless. Often this comes from mechanics like suppression, flanking, morale, unit type (infantry vs vehicle) or terrain interactions. In other words, force-multipliers that make practical combat effectiveness more difficult to quantify than spreadsheet math, and non-combat factors that influence how the unit interacts with the table. 40K has gradually watered these down over time until the depth comes almost entirely from the interplay of special abilities. You've got OC as a soft factor to consider, the atavistic and marginally relevant Leadership stat, and... that's about it, really.
You do need to think about taking objectives, but it's pretty rare for a unit to suck at combat, not have any useful special abilities, and still be worth taking. Contrast to, say, WHFB, where units like Gnoblars and Skavenslaves were crap but could cheaply fulfill important roles in adding rank bonuses and preventing flanking. Fast cavalry weren't great at fighting but could deny marching, run down fleeing enemies, and opportunistically flank. High Ld didn't directly affect your combat ability but made a huge difference in how likely your units were to stick around. Skirmishers weren't great in a stand-up fight but could more fluidly navigate the battlefield to get to where they were most useful. You could argue roles and relevance for units that had neither optimal combat capability nor relevant special rules on account of these soft factors, and it was harder to number-crunch a codex into 'worth taking' and 'not worth taking' within days of release.
I'd love to see more of that sort of design in 40K, but I'm not holding my breath.
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
The problem there is being able to recognize that what your opponent has is strong, or that they have satisfied the "please don't bring strong stuff" requirement, does require you to be somewhat more knowledgeable on the competitive scene than a truly casual player would be. Sure, a casual player could ask a more competitive player to "please don't bring THAT list", but that opponent might just swap out a tier 1 unit for a tier 2 unit. Hey, it's a different list, and doesn't specifically have that one unit you always complain about, right?
So at the point you're able to recognize what's strong and what's not, instead of going through the rigamarole of asking people to tone down their lists, why not just play at the level you're at yourself?
Your post weirdly seemingly conflates competitive with "high skill" and casual with "low skill", when that's not really the case. In my experience, players who bring net lists are trash at actually playing the game. High skill players are just in general more likely to a) be able to recognize themselves what makes their list so strong, and tone those aspects down either through gameplay itself or through changing the list b) have a better attitude & be willing to do so, whereas low skill players are going to want to farm their wins where they're getting them.
I actually used to play against one of those kind of people back in the day. i didn't mind the fact he was basically copy/paste tournament winning lists because they were not his lists and he really didn't know how to use them so i could bring a general list i normally use and beat him with it.
Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Wayniac wrote: I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.
Every single time.
At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.
With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.
I would not be surprised if most casual players just don't play at the LGS anymore, or at least don't play pick-up-games since the competitive seed has began to blossom.
i played in exactly 2 GTs and i find the tournament play mindset to be toxic. not that i didn't run into a couple guys here and there that were a blast to play with but it wasn't the standard. it is also why i swore off the entire scene. i really only have one list for my oldhammer dark angels and admech where i make minor tweaks from time to time. in the case of the dark angels (using the 3rd ed mini codex in 5th ed) it is Azrael, 2-3 tac squads a couple razorbacks, deathwing venerable dreads and a deathwing terminator command squad (because you could do that back in 3rd) about the most tweaking i do is swapping between the 4 different land raiders i own for them.
As for my salamanders i am sitting on 7-8k worth of minis including inquisitorial allied units so i have loads of options to change things up to make the game more fun and dynamic. i hardly ever run the same list more than a couple times.
last month in fact at the request of one of the regulars i ran the exact same list against 2 of his different armies with no changes and some added in game restrictions. i built a general list knowing i would be facing totally different play styles and i still managed to win both games. the first was very close (as he had to kill one unit to win the game) he had the range and firepower advantage so i had to play the objectives (5th ed 5 capture points) very hard. the second game it was more of an even slog that happened to turn out in my favor.
As Racerguy180 pointed out i also have the benefit of playing with a mostly regular group of a dozen or so oldhammer players who have the same mindset of the game so we don't have to have a conversation every single time to make sure we are not being "that guy" when we build our lists. when we bring new people in we also try to steer them in a similar direction. as none of us care about optimized tournament play. especially since we do not even play the newest edition.
I actually used to play against one of those kind of people back in the day. i didn't mind the fact he was basically copy/paste tournament winning lists because they were not his lists and he really didn't know how to use them so i could bring a general list i normally use and beat him with it.
Honestly these are some of the absolutely most satisfying victories.
Them: "Oldmarines are so small. Tactical squads are baaad."
Me: "Oh I'm sorry did I just wreck you?"
Wyldhunt wrote: While it sounds like the speeder storm didn't get translated over very well, I will say that I feel like 10th does a much better job of adding in "soft factors" than at least some of the previous editions. I'm mostly thinking of special rules like guardian defenders being able to generate fate dice for the army, rippers/scarabs being able to reduce the OC of enemy units, etc. We could probably go harder in that direction (I'd love to see debuff weapons like blinding weapons and haywire-as-stuns come back), but I do feel like 10th is better about including "soft factors" than 8th or 9th were.
I agree that 10th Ed has done a much better job than the previous two editions of giving each unit something interesting it can do that can't be easily boiled down to raw numerical efficiency. However, the monkey's paw curls one finger as this is primarily accomplished through a gakload of special rules that add back in much of the cognitive burden that the streamlining of subfactions and stratagems removed. It works, it's just a very 'artificial' solution.
Not to put words in Vankraken's mouth, but when I think of soft factors in wargames I tend to think more about capabilities that arise organically from the core rules, where a unit might have certain stats (or even just utility from existing) that don't directly relate to combat effectiveness but are important considerations nonetheless. Often this comes from mechanics like suppression, flanking, morale, unit type (infantry vs vehicle) or terrain interactions. In other words, force-multipliers that make practical combat effectiveness more difficult to quantify than spreadsheet math, and non-combat factors that influence how the unit interacts with the table. 40K has gradually watered these down over time until the depth comes almost entirely from the interplay of special abilities. You've got OC as a soft factor to consider, the atavistic and marginally relevant Leadership stat, and... that's about it, really.
Fair points put well. Have an exalt.
You do need to think about taking objectives, but it's pretty rare for a unit to suck at combat, not have any useful special abilities, and still be worth taking. Contrast to, say, WHFB, where units like Gnoblars and Skavenslaves were crap but could cheaply fulfill important roles in adding rank bonuses and preventing flanking. Fast cavalry weren't great at fighting but could deny marching, run down fleeing enemies, and opportunistically flank. High Ld didn't directly affect your combat ability but made a huge difference in how likely your units were to stick around. Skirmishers weren't great in a stand-up fight but could more fluidly navigate the battlefield to get to where they were most useful. You could argue roles and relevance for units that had neither optimal combat capability nor relevant special rules on account of these soft factors, and it was harder to number-crunch a codex into 'worth taking' and 'not worth taking' within days of release.
I'd love to see more of that sort of design in 40K, but I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah. I'd be in favor of more of this sort of thing in 40k. I like rules like plunging fire. I wish we'd get some sort of universal crossfire rule in 11th. Maybe some spotter rules and something like the screening rules we're discussing in the other thread.
As an eldar player, I have a pretty high tolerance for special rules per unit, but it does feel like past editions sometimes did more with less.
aphyon wrote:
As Racerguy180 pointed out i also have the benefit of playing with a mostly regular group of a dozen or so oldhammer players who have the same mindset of the game so we don't have to have a conversation every single time to make sure we are not being "that guy" when we build our lists. when we bring new people in we also try to steer them in a similar direction. as none of us care about optimized tournament play. especially since we do not even play the newest edition.
My homie & I have a game tomorrow, he's bringing his Eldar(which has basically been same list since 8th with minor additions/changes) & I know what that entails. His list is really strong currently and we normally don't tell each other what list we are bringing so he felt the need to let me know.
Am I going to tailor my list to exactly counter his...no, but I am going to meet him on a more equal footing(given my own fluff/minis restrictions).
The thing the irks me to no end is that I like playing against everyone in my group & they are what make the game fun, But the game feels increasingly shallow and devoid of meaningful choice once on the table. Which in turn diminishes the POSSIBILITY of fun, not the total lack of it.
Think so far one of the problems is the unit cards, not the concept, which is decent, but the fact they have space for a special rule and someone felt obliged to write something in there for every single unit
more things to try and remember, some marginal, some less so. What was wrong with some units just being average Joe Tyranid (or whatever)?
also for me the strategem issue, defined (by me) as nothing thats equipment or standard training should be a strategem - e.g. Grenades, units have them or don't have them. the Strategems should be "higher command" stuff and coordination - e.g. Grenades becomes something any suitable unit can do, with a 6+ effect, the 4+ is the strategem
The issue isn't every unit having a special rule, it's that so many of them are repeated either completely or in slight variations.
Sticky Objectives, Fight on Death, re-roll hit/wound on objective or vs something on an objective, damage reduction, and so on. These shouldn't be bespoke special rules. They should be Universal Special Rules.
catbarf wrote: However, the monkey's paw curls one finger...
Blessed are we with invaluable words of wisdom from Master Puretide himself. *gestures the sign of student-nodding-in-profound-introspection-once-found-inattentive*
I'll be playing my first game of 10th soon and TBH I'm not really looking forward to it. I am looking forward to playing again for the first time in a long time and it's nice that GW put out a fully free edition, but I really wish they had stood proud as a miniatures wargaming brand instead of continuing to cut into the MTG market.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The issue isn't every unit having a special rule, it's that so many of them are repeated either completely or in slight variations.
Sticky Objectives, Fight on Death, re-roll hit/wound on objective or vs something on an objective, damage reduction, and so on. These shouldn't be bespoke special rules. They should be Universal Special Rules.
agree many should be USRs, the cards can then have the USR rule added, all with the same name and identical wording unless there is some specific need for slightly different
Heck sometimes they don't even feel like special rules. Eg unit gets +1 save or +1 attack or such. However if no ability in the game then prevents those bonuses from the profile taking effect you can sometimes get the feeling of "why not just improve the base stat and not even have an ability".
Which I think leans into the design space of GW tryign to give every unit "unique flavour" via the abilities even if its utterly pointless to have it as an ability.
When you then couple it having the same ability across the game giving the same bonus with different names; its just even more chaff that makes the game harder to learn.
It honestly feels like somewhere they noted that people liked unique named abilities on models. Which then translated through layers of managers and marketing too a mandate for every unit to have a unique named ability; which then hit the wall of the design team not being totally mad and restricting themselves to a known pool to work from.
It's leaning on that concept of "too much of a good thing is bad" or "Too many cooks spoils the broth".
I don't know about non marine armies. But I think it would be nice, if GW did something for other armies, that they did for eldar now and DE in 9th. First have an idea how an army should play, make the units, rules and rules interactions. And then when the army is prebuild give stuff points. And if we could enter the wish verse, It would also be nice to unglue the different factions of marines from the marine codex. Make DeathWing detachment where DW stuff gets X, Y and Z buff, units costs a specific amount of points , which is different if the same units are taken in a green wing or RW list. And impose limitations. Non non inner circle stuff. Only "ally" can be the RW. The same could be done for RW. Green wing could have access to everything, but everything would cost more.
Then they could do some extra detachment, where lets say if you take 3 masters Azz, Sam and Belial. With special and different rules, maybe more interactions of between the wings (lets say units from the detachments can run "through" each other bases).
I think the same could be done for other factions. A nob heavy bad moon detachment, a "melee" goff army, and then something like a Ghaz super Waagh. All with different rules .
And the best thing, the detachments wouldn't have to be limited to a codex. They could release them in separate book, in a White Dwarf or even on their Community site.
Some narrative seson starts, where a specific tau force faces against a specific tyranid army. and each army gets 1 or 2 new detachments. with its own rules, point costs etc. And if they want to be 100% a-holes the rules can be free, but the point costs locked behind a warhammer+ subscription.
leopard wrote: Think so far one of the problems is the unit cards, not the concept, which is decent, but the fact they have space for a special rule and someone felt obliged to write something in there for every single unit
more things to try and remember, some marginal, some less so. What was wrong with some units just being average Joe Tyranid (or whatever)?
Well, while I agree that we don't need special rules on every unit, I do see some merit in there being special rules on most units. Or at least a lot of them.
The thing about being an average Joe unit is that it's easy to run into a lack of niche protection. If a unit's whole thing is that it shoots good and dies slow, then it means said unit is in direct competition with any other units whose roles also boil down to shoot good and die slow. If one of those other units shoots better or dies slower point-for-point, then our average Joe unit becomes a second-stringer; redundant and unlikely to see play when you could take the guy doing his job but better instead.
Now if we give Joe a special rule that lets him score better or buff another unit or otherwise contribute beyond shoot good/die slow, then he suddenly has a niche again even if he's not the most efficient good-shooter/slow-die-er in his codex.
Looking at marines, you've got vanguard vets, jump pack assault intercessors, reivers, and until recently assault marines all competing for the niche of deepstriking melee unit. If the only real differences between them are number of attacks and types of weaponry, you're probably going to end up with at least one redundant unit there. But if you give them special rules that let them serve different purposes, you theoretically keep them all relevant.
But that said, I do understand the appeal of having fewer special rules to remember.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The issue isn't every unit having a special rule, it's that so many of them are repeated either completely or in slight variations.
Sticky Objectives, Fight on Death, re-roll hit/wound on objective or vs something on an objective, damage reduction, and so on. These shouldn't be bespoke special rules. They should be Universal Special Rules.
It's hard to pin down because its so insanely variable and because there aren't really any guidelines that you can establish which are universal
I think the mistake is trying to define it by power level. What I've learned over the years is what keeps a community casual has more to do with players being permissive and communicative. What makes an environment casual is a yes first approach. Can I play with the Legends model? Yes. Is this conversion okay? Of course! I'd like to try this loadout on this unit that has a different weapon. Absolutely!
In terms of gameplay, intent beats out precision every time. Talk about distances and what you're trying to do. Say you're screening out the backfield and let your opponent know if they've left a gap. Mindfully place your stuff a certain distance away with the intent of being out of range of something. Not only does this keep the game state clean, but it engages players with one another and gives new players the feeling that you are demonstrating skills they need to acquire more than crushing them for sport. A casual environment is a social relationship and takes work and constant communication just like any other.
It's hard to pin down because its so insanely variable and because there aren't really any guidelines that you can establish which are universal
I think the mistake is trying to define it by power level. What I've learned over the years is what keeps a community casual has more to do with players being permissive and communicative. What makes an environment casual is a yes first approach. Can I play with the Legends model? Yes. Is this conversion okay? Of course! I'd like to try this loadout on this unit that has a different weapon. Absolutely!
In terms of gameplay, intent beats out precision every time. Talk about distances and what you're trying to do. Say you're screening out the backfield and let your opponent know if they've left a gap. Mindfully place your stuff a certain distance away with the intent of being out of range of something. Not only does this keep the game state clean, but it engages players with one another and gives new players the feeling that you are demonstrating skills they need to acquire more than crushing them for sport. A casual environment is a social relationship and takes work and constant communication just like any other.
Thing is this works at a local level yes. It however means that its very hard for you to talk to another player group about casual games when the other player group might have an entirely different approach. Nothing wrong in that at all, but 3rd group might take a different approach and soforth. Trying to actually build a rules set around casual is thus insanely complicated.
You have to take a leaf from RPG games in all truth. They are massive social and casual engaging systems. They own that and guess what - its all built on a foundation of logical, tested and balanced game rules. Heck some editions had vast amounts of rules for almost every action you could take. Multiple official books adding even more variety and that's before you hit 3rd party which adds even more. It's all based on a foundation of balanced, structured "rules and laws" and such that establishes how the game works.
Now RPG games have a bonus in that its run through a DM and a skilled DM is able to adapt on the fly to the players. Things too tough; then they can tone back a few encounters; things too easy they can throw something more powerful your way. Too much combat and not enough politics - yep they can adapt for that. Of course some DMs run from the game books only; some almost free form everything. The underlaying principle though is the same - a balanced set of rules.
So even RPG games do the same thing, they just don't need to worry as much about competitive level balance because whilst it does happen; the DM element allows games to adapt. Wargames lack the DM element and most often are built around PVP. Even if its not competitive the structure is still built around combat and still built around PVP. PVE is honestly very rarely done and whilst the Pandemic did give some boosts to some singleplayer PVE game formats; the format in general isn't as much used nor marketed for in wargames. The closest would be re-enactments where its still PVP but where the foundation for the whole game is based on reality in terms of deployments, unit numbers and soforth .
Again we swing back to the element that the best way to pin down casual play when designing a game; is the same as for competitive in establishing a strong foundation of game rules. Now you can easily argue that perhaps we could add rules to that which apply to PVE and casual play specifically; splicing in some elements that just don't feature in the wargame side to represent the more adaptive/varied casual environment.
There are definitely elements of game design that make it more casual friendly. Measurement granularity and the amount of advantages that provides is a big one. Terrain interaction is another. You can definitely make a competitively viable game that plays well in a casual setting if you're really aware of your rules and how natural they are in practice.
Perhaps the better term is "casual appeal". The idea that casual players aren't competing seems to be missing the audience. Casual audiences aren't necessarily opposed to competition; its just a lower commitment or interest in being the king of the hill. After all, games like Fortnite have huge casual audiences that still very much compete in the game despite never being the last one standing in a round.
I think there's a lot players can do to give a competitive game more casual appeal; it just takes work. Cool terrain that's designed in a way to work cleanly with competitive rules is a huge bridge for example. Other player groups might have different expectations, but how often are they going to come into contact outside of tournaments? Even then, cultural exchanges are great ways to spread ideas. My shop went from an extremely cutthroat atmosphere to a substantially more casual one largely from things I pulled from visiting other groups and seeing things that left me very jealous. I've learned a ton of ways to make things cleaner from the competitive side as well. Guest or host, always leave a good impression.
Fortnite gets away with it because the 100-player free-for-all format obfuscates just how small your chances of winning are when you're playing in the same server as some hardcore competitive streamer who you're probably unaware of. If it were a 1v1 duel instead, it would be painfully clear that you and your opponent aren't even really playing the same game - the weaker player would get trounced every time.
That's one of the challenges of designing a 1v1 PVP game. The more skill-based you make a game, the less casual it gets. The only way to address this is to add elements of randomness.
All popular skill-based games that have significant casual appeal rely on a ton of randomness in their design to allow the weaker players to win every once in a while. Earlier editions of 40k had more of this. Recent editions, a lot less.
Thing is this works at a local level yes. It however means that its very hard for you to talk to another player group about casual games when the other player group might have an entirely different approach. Nothing wrong in that at all, but 3rd group might take a different approach and soforth. Trying to actually build a rules set around casual is thus insanely complicated
.
Firstly, usual caveat that 'casual' is not the opposite side of the spectrum to 'competitive'. The opposite of competitive is non-conpetitive, the opposite of casual is serious.
Yes, 'casual' can mean different things to different groups. 'Less intense games' covers a lot of ground. As you say, this is fine. I'd argue it doesn't need to be 'universal' either - local variations is like regional differences when you travel. Makes things interesting.
However I think you are making a mistake in trying to define 'casual' around a rules set. Game Mechanics don't inherently make a game casual.or not. They're just resolution methods. Any game, regardless of mechsni s csn be played casually, seriously or weaponised to.bludgeon everyone else.
EDIT: Hmm, Or when you talk about 'rules' are you referring to the 'social contract' (ie behaviours, and approaches wtc) rather than the mechanics? In which case, bar high level generalities, once you get into the weeds, it can very much mean different things to different people. But as above, this isn't necessarily a problem.in and of itself.
You have to take a leaf from RPG games in all truth. They are massive social and casual engaging systems. They own that and guess what - its all built on a foundation of logical, tested and balanced game rules. Heck some editions had vast amounts of rules for almost every action you could take. Multiple official books adding even more variety and that's before you hit 3rd party which adds even more. It's all based on a foundation of balanced, structured "rules and laws" and such that establishes how the game works.
Now RPG games have a bonus in that its run through a DM and a skilled DM is able to adapt on the fly to the players. Things too tough; then they can tone back a few encounters; things too easy they can throw something more powerful your way. Too much combat and not enough politics - yep they can adapt for that. Of course some DMs run from the game books only; some almost free form everything. The underlaying principle though is the same - a balanced set of rules.
its all built on a foundation of logical, tested and balanced game rules.
It's all based on a foundation of balanced, structured "rules and laws" and such that establishes how the game works.
Have you ever read an rpg? Mate, this take is absurd. Rpgs are not balanced at all. Most are at best, poorly written snd very easily abused - just like wargames. Google rpg or munchkin power gamers. There's always a 'best build' and there's always some munchkin willing to stomp all over their fellows for their own gratification.
The sole reason rpgs work is because of the shock absorber that is a good GM that reins in the players, gets everyone on the same page and provides appropriate challenges.
Aka game crafting. Which is what I am always talking about when it comes to wargames as well.
Other thing to point out is modern rpgs evolved out of wargames. They literally share the same dna. There's no reason approaches in one are not transferable to the other.
So even RPG games do the same thing, they just don't need to worry as much about competitive level balance because whilst it does happen; the DM element allows games to adapt. Wargames lack the DM element and most often are built around PVP. Even if its not competitive the structure is still built around combat and still built around PVP. PVE is honestly very rarely done and whilst the Pandemic did give some boosts to some singleplayer PVE game formats; the format in general isn't as much used nor marketed for in wargames. The closest would be re-enactments where its still PVP but where the foundation for the whole game is based on reality in terms of deployments, unit numbers and soforth .
Wargames lack the DM element and most often are built around PVP.
Not true. 40k originated as a game with a gm and plenty historical games make room for one too, even to this day. And just because the rulebook doesn't mention one, there's no reason you can't hsve one either in a game of 40k. We've been playing this way for ten years now (two of my guys have been playing this way since the 70s).
Again we swing back to the element that the best way to pin down casual play when designing a game; is the same as for competitive in establishing a strong foundation of game rules. Now you can easily argue that perhaps we could add rules to that which apply to PVE and casual play specifically; splicing in some elements that just don't feature in the wargame side to represent the more adaptive/varied casual environment.
It's about the attitude and approach, not the rules. You can play any game casually.
Very true, all wargames by their nature are competitive. so the casual attitude with the level of focus on it is different.
for me a good hard fought close game is the best. if it is to easy one way or the other one player probably isn't having a good time.
It is just like the bad form of "seal clubbing" a new player making them have an awful experience and never wanting to play the game again.
It goes back to what was said earlier, if both players have the same expectations about what kind of game they are having it will be more enjoyable for both.
With 40K in particular. because i play so many different games that give me a different set of game mechanics. the IGOUGO system doesn't bother me. for me 40K has always been the fast & simple army battle game-move/shoot/assault you have 5-7 turn to take down your foe or capture objectives. if i lose but put up a good fight it was still a good game(some of the best in my experience). i do not expect chess, or a "balanced tournament game" when i play.
I expect epic battles, and thematic armies that play to the lore. that do things because that is how they should do things, even if it isn't the smartest thing(like khorne berserkers charging a Talos pain engine in 5th ed).
With 40K specifically because it was never originally meant to be a tournament system it does have that RPG element, at least with the older editions, so if you build up a local community with those expectations it is a fantastic game that doesn't run out of control from abuse. 20+ years on and i am still playing it and still enjoying it with an edition thats been out of GWs wheelhouse since 2012.
I can't explain what it is, but something with the combination of how 40k is nowadays just feels... bad. I played a game yesterday for a narrative campaign, and while the game itself wasn't bad (managed to turn an early loss into an almost win at the very end), it just felt miserable to play from the very beginning through the final turn. Again, I can't point to one thing in particular but just a combination of the way missions work, the terrain you "need" to use, the way units behave, the whole package just feels terrible to me. It doesn't feel at all enjoyable or like a fun wargame anymore; it feels like some bastardization that somehow manages to mesh the worst aspects of various games together.
To each their own, obviously, but I can say for myself something about this edition just feels horrible compared to everything that came before it. Could be that they're trying a new approach to it, and will refine it later with 11th and beyond, but it definitely no longer feels like the fun, engaging game that it used to.
To each their own, obviously, but I can say for myself something about this edition just feels horrible compared to everything that came before it. Could be that they're trying a new approach to it, and will refine it later with 11th and beyond, but it definitely no longer feels like the fun, engaging game that it used to.
11th will be a 10.5, and what they will probably do as a "fix" is give us back a few of the equipment/ unit options we lost- it will feel like we're spoiled for choice after 10th. They'll go back to costed equipment- or at least costs for some upgrades. They might add something to terrain rules. They might add a psychic phase. And that's about it.
But it won't stop them from selling us all the dexes again, and it's a 50/50 shot whether they'll nuke 10th's bespoke Crusade rules again; if the core rules are close enough, they won't HAVE to, but they might CHOOSE to, just to bump the odds that folks will purchase new dexes.
Wayniac wrote: I can't explain what it is, but something with the combination of how 40k is nowadays just feels... bad. I played a game yesterday for a narrative campaign, and while the game itself wasn't bad (managed to turn an early loss into an almost win at the very end), it just felt miserable to play from the very beginning through the final turn. Again, I can't point to one thing in particular but just a combination of the way missions work, the terrain you "need" to use, the way units behave, the whole package just feels terrible to me. It doesn't feel at all enjoyable or like a fun wargame anymore; it feels like some bastardization that somehow manages to mesh the worst aspects of various games together.
Are you missing thinking about dozens of strats (yours & theirs)?
Do you really miss fiddling about with pts for various gear?
Are you missing being able to pick your own perfect secondaries? (in general, maybe not for your campaign)
How about characters mostly lacking any protection unless they're leading units?
Is it the random nature of the mission deck?
Why do you feel you "need" any particular type of terrain? How is this different than whatever you were doing back in June, at the end of 9th?
Wayniac wrote: I can't explain what it is, but something with the combination of how 40k is nowadays just feels... bad. I played a game yesterday for a narrative campaign, and while the game itself wasn't bad (managed to turn an early loss into an almost win at the very end), it just felt miserable to play from the very beginning through the final turn. Again, I can't point to one thing in particular but just a combination of the way missions work, the terrain you "need" to use, the way units behave, the whole package just feels terrible to me. It doesn't feel at all enjoyable or like a fun wargame anymore; it feels like some bastardization that somehow manages to mesh the worst aspects of various games together.
Are you missing thinking about dozens of strats (yours & theirs)?
Do you really miss fiddling about with pts for various gear?
Are you missing being able to pick your own perfect secondaries? (in general, maybe not for your campaign)
How about characters mostly lacking any protection unless they're leading units?
Is it the random nature of the mission deck?
Why do you feel you "need" any particular type of terrain? How is this different than whatever you were doing back in June, at the end of 9th?
Definitely not missing a ton of stratagems, but it's all the rest. Characters being basically useless unless they're leading a unit (auras were bad too but this swung too much in the opposite direction IMO), the default style of play being drawing cards from a mission deck, terrain needing to be L-shaped ruins or shooting dominates, and so on.
Like I said, I can't point to just one thing. But it absolutely feels like a step backwards at best, and plodding forward in the wrong direction at worst, especially when compared to Sigmar's design. Even in things as simple as white dwarf content; AOS is having a narrative campaign published (that even supports playing Warcry as part of it), plus a random battle plan generator in this latest issue. Interesting things like that, which you don't see done at all for 40k (although the Bunker missions they've put in the last few issues are good, just ignored because people seem to think secondary objectives are some key piece of gameplay)
These are all symptoms of the mission design sickness going into 10th ed. It was designed by tourney organizers to fit their game style and (?coincidentally?) correspond to sets of terrain they sell. I've done some play testing to make sure I'm not using rose coloured glasses or going sour grapes. I've played about 4 games using 5th&6th ed missions and current rules. While I prefer the simplicity of 5ths scoring; I recognize the value progressive scoring brought in 6th to reward aggressive players committing to table presence. However in all cases the games are a lot funner for me which seemed to confirm my original feeling.
Gibblets wrote: These are all symptoms of the mission design sickness going into 10th ed. It was designed by tourney organizers to fit their game style and (?coincidentally?) correspond to sets of terrain they sell. I've done some play testing to make sure I'm not using rose coloured glasses or going sour grapes. I've played about 4 games using 5th&6th ed missions and current rules. While I prefer the simplicity of 5ths scoring; I recognize the value progressive scoring brought in 6th to reward aggressive players committing to table presence. However in all cases the games are a lot funner for me which seemed to confirm my original feeling.
Leviathan Deck being "the" way to play is probably one of the biggest problems, yes. But not the only one. Ironically also probably the easiest for me to look at changing since I play in a very laid back store where people don't feel the only way to play is with the deck. Doesn't fix the need for LOS blocking terrain everywhere though because the foundation of the system is so poorly designed.
How they managed to take steps back with a cool idea (Three Ways to Play and GHB/CA having ways for all of them) I'll never know. It's bad enough that previously Chapter Approved and still the General's Handbook went from "here's some neat ideas to use or inspire you" to "this season's tournament pack" like this was a fething MOBA/eSport, but 10th edition made it even worse by moving it out of a book into a deck of cards. At least on the Sigmar front they've moved some of that to White Dwarf (last two issues have a narrative campaign, with one more issue for it; each "phase" has 3 different battleplans in it and the campaign is designed for smaller boards and up to 1500 points at that, and the current issue has an open battleplan generator so you never have to play the same game twice); I doubt we'll ever see anything of the sort for 40k. The Bunker missions for 40k are interesting, at least, which is more than I can say for the AOS ones which so far are all just reprints of those lame "refight" missions from like the Ghal Maraz books early on in AOS' life (Nagash vs. Archaeon etc.), but at the same time those should have been part of the default rules. It still amazes me that 40k 10th edition shipped with one single mission that wasn't Leviathan, excluding the weird Crusade ones I guess, so that they literally expect you to play the tournament missions as the "normal" game all the time, whether or not you have any interest in tournament play or not.
I get the distinct impression that AOS is being the more creative outlet, while 40k is kept more traditional/slow-changing because it's been the cash cow and is where the most serious tournament players gravitate. Even the AOS tournaments I've heard are way friendlier than the sweaties that play 40k.
ccs wrote: Do you really miss fiddling about with pts for various gear?
Yes.
I found some upgrade parts were either "always" or "never" in taking and some units could get a lot of non-visual upgrades that would make them more complicated to field. I felt like that had been reducing somewhat over the years as armies got bigger and more models went from "Jack of all trades has upgrades to boost everything" into "this unit is a specialist forX because Y and Z are covered by other units".
That said looking at Tyranids the things I miss are more granular weapon options on a LOT of models. Those I DO miss not being varied in points. Having the option of a gun that's just better but costs more; having the option of different close combat weapons for specific focus (poor warriors lost ALL their options there). Heck why take Spinefists now? They cost exactly the same as all the better guns in the line-up. In the past you took them because they were cheap and let you swarm and more bodies was more important than the gun stats. Right now with equal pointing you've no reason not to give units their statistically best options each and every single time.
It would be an ideal setup if GW models had zero optional weapons - ergo if they worked like a lot of the competing model brands where each model has 1 pose 1 weapon and that's it.
To me one of the hallmarks of a GW game was the optional weapons. It was being able to take a single model and equip it for a situation. You can still do that, but because points rae now removed as a factor there's no pressure to take a "weaker" weapon. I can't field more of a weaker weapon or allow for me to field more of something else that's good; its just a flat out weaker option.
ccs wrote: Do you really miss fiddling about with pts for various gear?
Yes.
Converting some beastmen Fellgore Ravagers™ recently, I pondered for two seconds whether I should include a plasma pistol, heavy close combat weapon, and magic staff. Then I realised that any build other than including all of them was just objectively worse and there was no reason not to load up the expendable chaff unit with upgrades.
wargear costing points allows for cheaper, less good and more costly, better options and then the player to take the balance they want
and not feel obliged to stick maximum CIB on a crisis suit because without points, why wouldn't you?
you remove the option to say run 8 better equipped marines over ten with basic loadouts
you perhaps need some of the more trivial stuff to be baked in, and maybe some of the lower cost stuff to be "any one of the following" baked in, I would however suggest that the ability to stick sponson weapon upgrades on armour should have a cost, ditto some of the weapon configurations on knights etc.
There is something to be said for "you can have one of these in a squad for 2 points" just being baked into the stats
Heck why take Spinefists now? They cost exactly the same as all the better guns in the line-up. In the past you took them because they were cheap and let you swarm and more bodies was more important than the gun stats. Right now with equal pointing you've no reason not to give units their statistically best options each and every single time.
But spinefists are the mathematically better option, everyone playing endless swarm is spamming spinefists.
That mathhammer issue aside, with Tyranids different point costs is thematically weird. With other factions a more expensive weapon can be justified with higher logistics related costs and/or higher rarity.
Tyranids literally birth their guns according to their needs, thematically point costs doesn't make much sense for them. If devourers were strictly better then you would only see devourers in the lore.
Heck why take Spinefists now? They cost exactly the same as all the better guns in the line-up. In the past you took them because they were cheap and let you swarm and more bodies was more important than the gun stats. Right now with equal pointing you've no reason not to give units their statistically best options each and every single time.
But spinefists are the mathematically better option, everyone playing endless swarm is spamming spinefists.
That mathhammer issue aside, with Tyranids different point costs is thematically weird. With other factions a more expensive weapon can be justified with higher logistics related costs and/or higher rarity.
Tyranids literally birth their guns according to their needs, thematically point costs doesn't make much sense for them. If devourers were strictly better then you would only see devourers in the lore.
The points cost for tyranids represents increases in biomass required to make a specific thing.
I still thematically prefer Tyranid guns to have a side grade nature.
Even when it comes to blatantly larger and more powerful weapons like venom cannons... Well they are larger and heavier, that is a drawback that should be represented on the rules in addition to point costs to represent the added biomass cost.
The fact that Tyranids have variety at all suggests that there's more going on than simply creation of perfection. Otherwise all they'd do is create endless swarms of Hive Tyrants.
On the one hand you can easily say that better things for the Tyranids to create, require more raw resources to go into them and even specific kinds of biomass that might be rarer/less plentiful. So yes they can make some terrifying things, but they require more resources for them to produce. So they make fewer and rely on mass bodies of weaker things that they can quickly pump out.
Another is that whilst Tyranids have insanely fast evolution and genetic control; they also display elements of imperfection. Eg they have genetic drift and make heavy use of this. Breeding vast swarms and selecting those that work the best in a given environment/situation and then breeding more of those. That can only happen if there's some element of genetic drift/continual genetic alteration. Ergo they aren't able/capable/choosing to create perfect clones of themselves.
When you then look at their structure they share visual traits and a hive organisation structure which suggest that there's more at play than simple genetics. Eg they can create hormagaunts that have synapse nodes (codex 3) however they typically choose not too. Indeed there's a hive structure and order to them which suggests that such things might be engrained into them at a very fundamental level. Perhaps from a vast point in the past when they were settled on one world and originally arose as what they are. An element of themselves that they can't escape.
This might bleed into other things and might even explain why they breed fewer higher tier creatures and also why higher tier weapons are even a thing. Esp if we consider that weapons themsleves are partly/fully alive and thus might also have to obey the same rules as the host.
Interestingly another thing to consider is how many Tyranids hold their weapons whilst how many are clearly birthed with the weapon melded to their form.
Converting some beastmen Fellgore Ravagers™ recently, I pondered for two seconds whether I should include a plasma pistol, heavy close combat weapon, and magic staff. Then I realised that any build other than including all of them was just objectively worse and there was no reason not to load up the expendable chaff unit with upgrades.
Like you guys, I believe GW should have maintained a costed-equipment system for matched play; it brought another dimension to the game, and it's a system that has been there every edition, and all of us were used to it.
Having said that though, in 9th when I was given a choice between PL and points, I always chose PL, because my equipment choices were always driven by the narrative anyway. Cut off my supply lines by taking a critical objective? Gues my heavy weapons are taking ammo checks next game, or I leave them at home.
Want a magic staff for for a beast shaman? Well, pyschic power flows from the Herdstone, so I better get out there and capture one.
I know not everyone likes to play this way, and that some of those who do can't find opponents who will entertain the idea. But for those who can and do play this way, uncosted equipment makes more sense, because you can always take it when you meet the story conditions, whether you have the points to afford it or not.
The thing is all those narrative elements you can do with a pointed system. You just modify your equipment pool or adapt the points and away you go. It also means you've got some sense of balance in the game if, for example, one side ends up with a narrative army that's 500points more than the opponent then you know that there's a fairly big divide in the armies.
Maybe that's part of the story an the under-dog is in a last-stand or has to escape the board; maybe you give one player 500 points more units with the same limits (cut down supplies but ample troops) etc....
You can predict and adapt with it.
Without that granular system (even if its not perfect) you kind of lose all sense of relativity. Especially when some armies can really load up units to be very powerful whilst others might be far more barebones.
I've been dwelling on this topic since 10th came out and I just feel like the game is so restrictive at this point that it is no longer fun. Points cost for war gear gave the choice of boys over toys vs toys over boys. I used to spend a good deal of time making list that I was probably never going to play because it was fun. Now it is hard for me to even want to make a list to play a game let alone to theorize on new tactics.
I hated when they made it so characters were just auras and was happy to see them return to being attached to units, then like a monkey paw they made it so they could only join very specific units making it feel awful. Now when I build list I find myself forcing myself to take units in order to take the characters I want just so they don't die immediately.
Every unit having special abilities is just so annoying. Every single thing that GW does is like one step forward two steps back. Great concept to make units have abilities to give them a unique advantage but then restricting them to mostly having a SINGLE special ability. I will never not be annoyed that my Haruspex can't regain wounds from eating enemies, instead it gets a worthless battleshock ability.
A detachments holding all of the rules for your army really irks me to no end. Some detachments are okay but then some, like the Assimilation Swarm, are SO niche that it feels beyond mono-build. Also I want to get on my soap box about an enhancement called Regenerative Monstrosity that can not be taken by monsters, screw you GW.
The game feels stripped down and sanitized to the point that I feel like I am a bystander rather than a participant.
I think when it comes to narrative gaming GW has spent the last decade mashing it all together.
So rather than have a solid base game, that they can build different campaigns, missions, and narrative off.
They have a big pot of variety ideas that never mesh so well.
I have play campaigns where I failed to protect a supply line, so my fleets/army were struggling.
No need to make it reflected in the game, since it was automatically part of the game narrative.
Ally’s, weddings, treaties, all reflected by the ongoing campaigns. And the narrative from there.
Mordheim I don’t go into any campaigns saying here’s the narrative, I let the gameplay make those choices. My narrative a response to what happens.
Why this is no the only way to do narrative gaming, and shouldn’t be.
GW hasn’t built much foundation for it.
And I would think building it as a foundation and then using things like PL to make different narrative does a lot for the feel of the setting on the table.
People who say forge the narrative for years, often killed narrative in the setting!
And why I think it feels so hollow now, so much of the narrative is just saying your special ability and going with that.
The thing is all those narrative elements you can do with a pointed system. You just modify your equipment pool or adapt the points and away you go.
Sure, but a) if you make those changes, then the theoretical "balance" provided by points is moot because you've tinkered with the system and b) if you use PL, you don't have to do anything- you just use the rule as written.
Remember, I'm not advocating for PL only; I'm advocating for a system where players can choose like we had in 9th.
There is no need to say, "Just use this system with these modifications" in a system that offers both option- just pick the one that fits your needs because both are available. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so it really is a subjective decision based on the type of game you want to play on a given day.
It also means you've got some sense of balance in the game if, for example, one side ends up with a narrative army that's 500points more than the opponent then you know that there's a fairly big divide in the armies.
Maybe that's part of the story an the under-dog is in a last-stand or has to escape the board; maybe you give one player 500 points more units with the same limits (cut down supplies but ample troops) etc....
You can predict and adapt with it.
And this kind of "rough indication of balance" is EXACTLY what PL was designed to provide, rather than the theoretical "exact, competitive balance" that points were designed to provide. It did a far better job of providing it for me in 9th than points did, because every single time a new munitorum manual dropped, everyone using points had to re-examine their lists and many made changes, while the people in my crew didn't care or even notice. That was a HUGE advantage for us, based on our personal preferences and what we wanted out of the game.
Without that granular system (even if its not perfect) you kind of lose all sense of relativity. Especially when some armies can really load up units to be very powerful whilst others might be far more barebones.
In Crusade, your battle honours make a far greater difference than load out, and while there are "Crusade Points" to provide a rough-cut way to measure those, it's rough cut enough that the additional granularity provided by costed equipment doesn't really matter. PL + Crusade points = Accurate Enough for narrative gaming, where greater accuracy would require house ruling in order to correctly represent story-based list modification.
Even if that were not the case, other players could still choose points if they didn't like PL.
On the wargear costs, there were definitely some wargear that I tended to take almost by default (e.g. darklight weapons on Warriors).
However, I think where things get interesting is when you reach/exceed the point limit. Because that's when you then go back and start reconsidering even the auto-take wargear choices. Is it better to have those two units with ideal loadouts, or could they perhaps take cheaper weapons so that you can afford an extra unit? Or perhaps you'd prefer to cut a unit and add some extra wargear to other units?
There were definitely choices that could have been improved, no question, but I don't think removing swathes of wargear and then removing all point costs from the remainder is an improvement in any way shape or form.
you perhaps need some of the more trivial stuff to be baked in, and maybe some of the lower cost stuff to be "any one of the following" baked in,
Just on this point, I think a big problem is that a lot of the stuff that's now been baked-in is stuff that was neither trivial nor auto-take.
e.g. Archons used to just have bog-standard Kabalite armour. However, for 10pts they could take Ghostplate (4+/6++), then for 20pts they could take a Clone Field (ignored d3 melee attacks in 5th, in 7th was just a standard 4++), or for 40pts they could take Shadowfield (2++ that goes away if ever failed).
(The latter two were mutually exclusive.)
This gave the Archon a decent range of defensive options, depending on how much you wanted to spend. I very much liked the Clone Field in 7th because I preferred the reliability of a save that wasn't lost when failed, as well as being half the cost of the Shadowfield. I believe many people ran Archons without either, relying wholly on transports and terrain for protection. It was also a way to differentiate different Archons - perhaps the Dracon is permitted Ghostplate but nothing else, whilst the commanding Archon is fully-kitted.
But since 8th, all those options are now gone and Archons are just stuck with a Shadowfield whether you want one or not.
Yeah. I feel like 10th's approach to removing options/removing points costs for options is sort of the worst of several worlds.
Like, there were definitely inefficient ("bad') options for how to equip your units in the past. I can see where a designer might want to simplify the task of balancing options by rolling some of the redundant options together and basically supporting a few specific "builds" for each unit. But then removing points means that you theoretically have to make all of your remaining options equally powerful; you can't have the weaker-but-cheaper option or the stronger-but-costly option.
And I can see a world where you'd maybe remove points costs and just let people take whatever wargear they want, leaving it up to them to weight he benefits of cost efficiently over fluff for themselves; basically 8th/9th style PL. But 10th doesn't do that either; it removes a bunch of options that less us flavor our characters. Like, you can't pretend that your archon with less potent wargear is your dracon because there are so few options for the archon that they end up feeling basically identical.
If I were trying to write the next drukhari codex, I think I'd try to do something like this:
* Start with a basic, no-frills archon. Maybe he has a default special rule that's nothing to write home about. He's basically a glorified sybarite.
* Give him the option to spend X points to take his pick from an expanded armory. We don't have to price out individual pistol and melee weapon types. Instead, we just charge X points to let him take a rifle or blaster one of several melee weapons + his choice of pistol. I'd probably lump several melee weapons from the past together. So like, maybe we don't differentiate between an agoniser and a venom blade; maybe it's just an "envenomed weapon." Basically, any weapon he has the choice of taking should be distinctive enough to have its own role/purpose.
* Give them a special rule "slot." Basically, you can gain one (and only one) of several special rules for X, Y, or Z points. This rule defines the archon's "job" in your army. Maybe you have one that makes him more of a beatstick, one that lets him buff units while embarked on a transport, and one that lets him mess with stratagems or reserves or something. A duelist, a raid leader, and a schemer. Three distinct jobs for the same base model, and you don't have to print a new model or bring back warlord traits, etc. to facilitate it.
If you really don't want to frame this as an option that costs points, you just give him the option you anticipate to be the most valuable as the default, price him accordingly, and then give him the option to swap out special rules for free.
* Give him the option to pay X points for his choice of a shadowfield, a clone field, or just high-quality armor. Again, each of these being useful in its own distinctive way; the gambler's option, the specialized quirky option, and the reliable conventional option.
And there you go. Without bringing back super specific point costs, you take the archon from being depressingly bland and monotonous to being flavorful and customizable with no more complexity than adding extra bodies to a scourge squad and choosing their special weapons. You even regain the option to take a cheaper version of the unit.
I vastly prefer the removal of Wargear costs personally. Units having cool stuff is just vastly more interesting than cutting it all for the sake of efficiency. That said, there's definitely places where GW needs to reevaluate options. Like I don't care that a Sgt always has the Plasma pistol and never the bolt pistol (particularly if the grunts have the lesser pick) but making weapons have distinct but attract rolls needs to be a priority. I think there's places where they nailed some of the choices and others where they missed by a mile, but I wouldn't say that was something they ever consistently hit with points either.
LunarSol wrote: I vastly prefer the removal of Wargear costs personally. Units having cool stuff is just vastly more interesting than cutting it all for the sake of efficiency. That said, there's definitely places where GW needs to reevaluate options. Like I don't care that a Sgt always has the Plasma pistol and never the bolt pistol (particularly if the grunts have the lesser pick) but making weapons have distinct but attract rolls needs to be a priority. I think there's places where they nailed some of the choices and others where they missed by a mile, but I wouldn't say that was something they ever consistently hit with points either.
See, I think the plasma pistol vs bolt pistol thing is a great example of where points can be helpful. Without points, you either have to make the bolt pistol equally desirable compared to the plasma pistol, or else it kind of feels bad knowing you're playing at a disadvantage. With points, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my bolt pistol is functionally saving me 10 points (or however many) that I can instead put towards something else.
You're right about cutting cool weapons for the sake of efficiency feeling bad, but the crux of the problem there is that the plasma pistol (for example) was too inefficient for its cost compared to whatever you ended up spending points on instead.
But again, I feel like there's potentially a decent middleground to be found in saying, "Spend X points. Help yourself to the good weapons instead of just the cheap stuff." Still creates the ability to go with the cheap option (the bolt pistol) without making the bolt pistol equally as good as the plasma pistol. The main downside there, I guess, is that if you've spent the X points, you may as well grab a power sword while the armory is open.
LunarSol wrote: I vastly prefer the removal of Wargear costs personally. Units having cool stuff is just vastly more interesting than cutting it all for the sake of efficiency. That said, there's definitely places where GW needs to reevaluate options. Like I don't care that a Sgt always has the Plasma pistol and never the bolt pistol (particularly if the grunts have the lesser pick) but making weapons have distinct but attract rolls needs to be a priority. I think there's places where they nailed some of the choices and others where they missed by a mile, but I wouldn't say that was something they ever consistently hit with points either.
See, I think the plasma pistol vs bolt pistol thing is a great example of where points can be helpful. Without points, you either have to make the bolt pistol equally desirable compared to the plasma pistol, or else it kind of feels bad knowing you're playing at a disadvantage. With points, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my bolt pistol is functionally saving me 10 points (or however many) that I can instead put towards something else.
You're right about cutting cool weapons for the sake of efficiency feeling bad, but the crux of the problem there is that the plasma pistol (for example) was too inefficient for its cost compared to whatever you ended up spending points on instead.
But again, I feel like there's potentially a decent middleground to be found in saying, "Spend X points. Help yourself to the good weapons instead of just the cheap stuff." Still creates the ability to go with the cheap option (the bolt pistol) without making the bolt pistol equally as good as the plasma pistol. The main downside there, I guess, is that if you've spent the X points, you may as well grab a power sword while the armory is open.
Part of the problem is just that the pistols are too situation to be worth any amount of cost. The whole concept of min/maxing is to cut every situational cost in order to pool the savings into additional value everywhere. You never want to spend points on pistol upgrades, no matter how many fractions of points they're. I just don't care if that's limited to the Sgt character. One guy in the squad having cooler stuff is fine, though I definitely prefer when there's cool options. Like I don't care if every Sgt has a better pistol, but it'd be cool if they had a choice of Plama or Hand Flamer or Melta or something as long as THOSE options had different but useful functions.
I agree with the idea that there should be no clear "best" option if everything is free. If you have an option between a bolt pistol and a plasma pistol, there needs to be a way to make them equivalent sidegrades somehow. It was easier in the days of "gets hot" where there was an obvious downside to firing a plasma pistol, these days though theres no risk to plasma weapons unless you elect the supercharge profile, so bolt pistols need something (an extra shot or two? strike first in melee? extra attacks in melee?) to make them more comparable.
See that's the thing. If all weapons were evenly balanced within each model so that you could choose based on a role or function and they'd perform around the same in game or without big swings and such then a single point cost per model would work.
The problem is that isn't what we've got. You've got guns that clearly perform better than others; or those which are very specific (eg anti tank but not good on infantry etc.... ) but very good in their specific niche and then generalist weapons that do well against multiple targets.
It just leads to a mess where there's been no real attempt to balance things for a single cost. It's the same issue Power Level had ever since it came out and its the reason many people never used it. GW just went all in forcing it on us; first by putting it on the unit profiles instead of points; and this edition by simply removing points and replacing it with power level
10th is better than PL ever was though. A lot of weapons have been balanced out in a more interesting Shot vs Str vs AP vs special rules manner. There's definitely work to be done, but the direction to me is vastly more interesting and fun that using points to try and make them a choice. That results in the exact same problem we have now, just with the caveat of "for its cost" added in.
There can also be weaker options. Bolt Pistols can be bad if their purpose is to be taken by grunts. They're just not really a valid Sgt option. If 10th was a brand new game they wouldn't be a valid Sgt option, but GW put in a bunch of stuff to support legacy configurations. I'd be happy to see those cut entirely, but I'm also happy to ignore them for what they are.
chaos0xomega wrote: I agree with the idea that there should be no clear "best" option if everything is free. If you have an option between a bolt pistol and a plasma pistol, there needs to be a way to make them equivalent sidegrades somehow. It was easier in the days of "gets hot" where there was an obvious downside to firing a plasma pistol, these days though theres no risk to plasma weapons unless you elect the supercharge profile, so bolt pistols need something (an extra shot or two? strike first in melee? extra attacks in melee?) to make them more comparable.
See, I feel like we're already entering into power creep territory here where the lack of points for wargear is causing you to want to make the weaker options more lethal. I think we can all probably agree that:
A.) Tactical marines should have the option of taking some special weapons in their squad (flamers, meltas, plasma, etc.)
B.) Those special weapons should probably be more powerful than a bolter.
That being the case, we're in this position where you can choose to not swap out a bolter for a plasma gun, but you're clearly playing at a disadvantage if you do so. I don't really want to buff bolters to the point that a bolter is the equivalent of a plasma gun or melta (with some sort of trade-off); I want the plasma/melta to be *better* than the bolter on the whole but to be rarer.
So if we're not going back to points for specific pieces of wargear, I like the idea of doing something like:
"This unit may pay 20 points to open the armory. If they do so...
* A model may replace their bolter with a flamer, melta, or plasmagun.
* A model may replace their bolter with a flamer, melta, plasmagun, missile launcher, lascannon, etc.
The unit's sergeant may pay 20 points to open the armory. If he does so, he may choose 2 of the following options:
* Swap bolter out for a combi-weapon or storm bolter.
* Swap out pistol for a plasma pistol, inferno pistol, or hand flamer.
* May be given a power sword, power fist, or melta bombs."
This unit may pay 60 points to add an additional 5 marines to the starting squad size.
So you're not adding a ton of book keeping to your army list. There' still only a handful of potential points costs for the unit. However, you gain the freedom to save points by taking a cheap unit or spending a chunk of points to upgrade the unit's weaponry, or spend a chunk of points to upgrade the sergeant specifically. You would want weapons that occupy the same "slot" (ex: flamer/melta/plasma gun) to all be roughly as powerful as each other, but you don't have to agonize over whether an inferno pistol should cost 5 more points than a hand flamer or 10. Basically you pay points for the "slots" you want to fill, and then the options for each slot have to be roughly equally valuable.
EDIT: Applying this approach to my scourges, my options might be:
* Pay 30 points to give 4 scourges in the squad a better gun.
* Pay (whatever the cost for the first 5 scourges was) to add 5 more scourges to the squad.
* Pay 20 points to let the solarite swap out his weapons.
So now my first 5 scourges can go down in price; they don't have to be priced under the assumption that they'll have special weapons. The unit doesn't have to pay for solarite weapons that I might not be taking. If I want to upgrade the solarite but stick to the basic guns, or if I want to take special guns but don't want to also give the solarite better weapons, then I can save points. The special weapons all take up the same slot, so the goal would be to design those guns to be roughly as useful as each other (same as in the current system), but the basic guns don't have to compete with them at the same price point.
Yeah, I don't disagree with any of what you wrote, but from a design standpoint, a goal seems to have been to simplify points down and minimize or eliminate upgrade costs. As a result, you have to do something else to offset the differences. You're right though, when it comes to certain weapon upgrades, its kind of impossible to make a plasma gun a sidegrade to a bolter, likewise certain upgrades like sponsons on a russ are just flat out "more" and theres no way to really sidegrade that either.
chaos0xomega wrote: Yeah, I don't disagree with any of what you wrote, but from a design standpoint, a goal seems to have been to simplify points down and minimize or eliminate upgrade costs. As a result, you have to do something else to offset the differences. You're right though, when it comes to certain weapon upgrades, its kind of impossible to make a plasma gun a sidegrade to a bolter, likewise certain upgrades like sponsons on a russ are just flat out "more" and theres no way to really sidegrade that either.
Exactly.
That's why my pitchy is to basically price a handful of options rather than specific wargear. It respects the desire to simplify army building/points costs, but brings back just a little bit of complexity in order to expand player options significantly. Trying to respect the direct GW seems to want to go while still improving things, basically.
While I much prefer individually priced wargear, even just having a blanket points cost for simplified options like above would be a huge upgrade over the current state of the game.
chaos0xomega wrote: Yeah, I don't disagree with any of what you wrote, but from a design standpoint, a goal seems to have been to simplify points down and minimize or eliminate upgrade costs. As a result, you have to do something else to offset the differences. You're right though, when it comes to certain weapon upgrades, its kind of impossible to make a plasma gun a sidegrade to a bolter, likewise certain upgrades like sponsons on a russ are just flat out "more" and theres no way to really sidegrade that either.
Exactly.
That's why my pitchy is to basically price a handful of options rather than specific wargear. It respects the desire to simplify army building/points costs, but brings back just a little bit of complexity in order to expand player options significantly. Trying to respect the direct GW seems to want to go while still improving things, basically.
DW Vets do this pretty well. Storm Shields for example, are very good, but they can only be paired with standard bolters or power weapons. It makes them a very good take but each one has to come out of the units offensive potential. There's effectively 4 "basic" wargear loadouts to pick from that all have their use; though I think the Long Vigil Ranged Weapon is a lacking choice that I'd rather see replaced with a dedicated Shotgun loadout.
I'm personally looking at, say, the Tactical Squad situation of "well, what if I don't want to arm my Tacticals with a flamer or some other weapon" as GW saying "yeah, but Tactical Squads are MEANT to have a special weapon".
Like, by all mean, people play their game how they like, but I feel that this is GW explicitly saying "we don't like how we've had systems in the past that have encouraged taking none of the cool things we've been offering you, because in the fluff, these things are more common than not! You can still represent your old units by not taking the extra weapons, but we want to encourage you to take the fun stuff, because that's our vision of what this universe is."
It's a similar thing with what units can join what - like it or not, GW have a certain image and vision of what units are "supposed" to be being accompanied, and to a certain point, I get it! It looks kinda goofy when a model in a very different type of armour is leading a unit who don't wear the same thing, or when units that are thematically not linked support eachother on the table because they're the most efficient thing. My best example of this is things like models in Terminator armour with non-Terminator units - they look honestly really out of place, and I believe that GW might believe so too. Or Centurions being accompanied by, well, anything! Because no commander really looks coherent with them!*
I think sometimes it's maybe worth considering what GW envision armies looking like. And if they think that armies "should" be looking like they have all the cool kit and special weapons, and that they don't want to see people feeling like they can't take the fun, exciting options, and need to stick with, say, leaving Tactical Marines all with bolters instead of giving them the mixed weapon options we all know and love, then of course they'll be writing rules that encourage that. Maybe it's a change in dynamic, maybe it's not what some people were used to and built around. Maybe. I'm personally not complaining. Again, with Tactical Marines, I find it hard to believe that someone made a whole unit of Tactical Marines with no special or heavy weapons, or didn't recognise that's what the unit was supposed to look like.
*obviously, there's some pretty egregious outliers, and these mostly exist within factions like the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Orks. Why Archons can't fight alongside Incubi I'll never know (well, aside from the inch different movement speed, but, just make Incubi faster?)
The problem is that for so long they pushed the vision of "your dudes" and basically infinite customizability (which admittedly they have been reversing the last couple editions of the game), that people feel like they are basically having choices taken away from them, even though the system is really intended (hypothetically) to try to make it easier for players to enjoy the variety and customizations that GW has offered.
Its true - building your squads "naked" is a choice, and should be a valid one for players to make (I, personally, am someone that often would forego special weapons in my units, often for fluff reasons, sometimes for gameplay reasons, etc.). In the past I could do so without much in the way of a direct impact to the balance of my force, I could offset the lack of special weapons in my line squads with capabilities found in other units. Now though, building "naked" squads puts you in a position where you're playing at a clear disadvantage against your opponent (unless they also follow suit).
I think doing something to make players feel like the choice to go barebones is valid would help go a long way to smoothing over the problem. I think wyldhunts is a good one, just a simple/limited flat cost increase to upgrade the equipment. Leave it up to the players whether or not they want to spend those points to do so, and then how they want to spend them/try to optimize their build, etc.
See being a Tyranid player I can very much accept that Warriors, Tyrant and Carnifex were built as multi-weapon kits and with upgrades to suite any role because they were 3 kits that basically had to do a whole army's worth of roles.
Since those early days the army has expanded a LOT and we have a wide range of specialist models in many key roles now. Even to the point where models like the Carnifex almost feel a little overshadowed.
So on the one hand I do welcome the idea of consolidating some models to have a more specific focus whereas once they were generalist.
Thing is this doens't feel like what GW were after with this update in 10th edition. Because no effort was made to really preserve those roles or limit them. Indeed about the only limiting that took place with Tyranid was to consolidate all the warrior close combat options down to 1 single profile. Which is a very odd choice when you consider that many of the close combat roles they were offering were unique to them anyway.
Instead it just feels like GW wanted to streamline everything and/or make the game more accessible by simplifying the adding up of armies in a super fast way (having possibly failed ot make a high end well accepted app that would do it for people on their phones).
Now I could accept that perhaps there's a Shriek kit with lots of close combat weapons waiting for a mid-edition campaign book that will not only bring back the role of a "mid size close combat warrior style model" along with jumppack wings; but also pair with the single winged leader warrior; who right now feels very out of place with wings and only being able to lead a unit that has no wings.
Slight digression, butI feel like the big issue with 10th that I have is the homogenization of the rules, both within armies and between them.
What I mean is, each army has been given a template and must adhere to it: so only one army rule, 6 strats (with one in one out), one detachment rule etc…
However, I feel that this just doesn’t work for every army. Necrons for sure need reanimation as a core rule, but why does oath of moment exist? Why did tau marker lights morph into an army wide rule?
Because that’s what made it past the committee. It all sounds good in theory, but I feel it takes too much away that I liked.
Additionally, in regards to weapons and units, many have also been locked into certain sizes or loadouts. My skitarii are now forced into 10 man squads with one of each special weapon, which is lame given that I’d never even consider giving vanguard an arquebus. (This started in 9th but it got worse) So now it’s just take the big block of whatever and play, which is something I don’t feel is necessary, and instead is detrimental. The less I can customize my dudes, the less interest I have in the hobby, and the less I’ll play.
chaos0xomega wrote: The problem is that for so long they pushed the vision of "your dudes" and basically infinite customizability (which admittedly they have been reversing the last couple editions of the game), that people feel like they are basically having choices taken away from them, even though the system is really intended (hypothetically) to try to make it easier for players to enjoy the variety and customizations that GW has offered.
Do we think it's maybe a case of newer players being the focus of GW's attentions, and not already established armies?
As for "your dudes", I personally find it easier to do "your dudes" when I'm not feeling like the "cool" option is gonna prevent me from taking the unit because the points don't match. I find it much more fun to have a Sergeant with an interesting weapon, even if it never really gets used, rather than "yeah, here's my fourth sergeant with barebones weapons because I was trying to make my points stretch". My guardsmen sergeants still use barebones kit, because that fits them much better for how I see them, but for my Space Marine sergeants, they have a variety of weapons because I see them as having the luxury to choose them - same for my Sybarites, Alphas and Sister Superiors. They feel much more "mine" then when I was encouraged to not really bother with upgrades on certain units. But, YMMV.
Its true - building your squads "naked" is a choice, and should be a valid one for players to make (I, personally, am someone that often would forego special weapons in my units, often for fluff reasons, sometimes for gameplay reasons, etc.). In the past I could do so without much in the way of a direct impact to the balance of my force, I could offset the lack of special weapons in my line squads with capabilities found in other units. Now though, building "naked" squads puts you in a position where you're playing at a clear disadvantage against your opponent (unless they also follow suit).
Okay, but Tactical Marines?? It baffles me that someone could see Tactical Marines and think "yep, this unit is designed to be barebones and no squad weapons". And I think that GW encouraging people to actually use the cool toys they have is great for that - shaping the idea of how they see the game being played. Not with barebones units and scrimping for points, but with cool upgrades and taking a variety of options. Now, of course, as players are oft to be, there's the idea of "disadvantage" if you're not taking full advantage of the ability to take what you like, but, well, that's a personal thing. GW could try and create a way where, say, all Sergeant weapons were balanced against eachother, and all upgraded weapons were all sidegrades of eachother, but actually TAKING upgraded squad weapons? Sorry, I believe that should be a given. Gone are the days of a barebones unit, and I think that's for the best. Again, YMMV.
I think doing something to make players feel like the choice to go barebones is valid would help go a long way to smoothing over the problem. I think wyldhunts is a good one, just a simple/limited flat cost increase to upgrade the equipment. Leave it up to the players whether or not they want to spend those points to do so, and then how they want to spend them/try to optimize their build, etc.
Again, I agree with the idea of all upgraded weapons and sergeant weapons being sidegradable to eachother, but the actual manner of taking them? I've very much in the camp of "if you don't want to take them, don't, but that's clearly not intended."
In much the same way that if you want to build your army full of units that have no anti-tank or anti-monster weapons, that's your choice, but it's not how things are intended. And you deal with that.
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Dandelion wrote: Additionally, in regards to weapons and units, many have also been locked into certain sizes or loadouts. My skitarii are now forced into 10 man squads with one of each special weapon, which is lame given that I’d never even consider giving vanguard an arquebus. (This started in 9th but it got worse) So now it’s just take the big block of whatever and play, which is something I don’t feel is necessary, and instead is detrimental. The less I can customize my dudes, the less interest I have in the hobby, and the less I’ll play.
Now this I can get behind - units which were previously able to be much smaller now being forced into larger squads isn't something I'm liking.
Okay, but Tactical Marines?? It baffles me that someone could see Tactical Marines and think "yep, this unit is designed to be barebones and no squad weapons". And I think that GW encouraging people to actually use the cool toys they have is great for that - shaping the idea of how they see the game being played. Not with barebones units and scrimping for points, but with cool upgrades and taking a variety of options. Now, of course, as players are oft to be, there's the idea of "disadvantage" if you're not taking full advantage of the ability to take what you like, but, well, that's a personal thing. GW could try and create a way where, say, all Sergeant weapons were balanced against eachother, and all upgraded weapons were all sidegrades of eachother, but actually TAKING upgraded squad weapons? Sorry, I believe that should be a given. Gone are the days of a barebones unit, and I think that's for the best. Again, YMMV.
Granted, tactical squads without any special weapons does seem slightly unusual. But I feel they're more the exception than the rule. Taking kabalites with just splinter rifles should be valid. Taking guardians without the support platform should be valid. Taking marine vehicles without hunter-killer missiles should be valid.
In the case of tacticals, if the intention really, really is for them to always have 1 special weapon per 5 dudes, you could basically make the special weapons "package" I pitched earlier into a mandatory part of their unit. Basically, don't pretend a squad of 5 bolters is a valid way to build the unit if it really isn't. But also, my pitch above leaves it up to the player. If you *do* have a reason for wanting to field all bolters, you can do so without effectively wasting points. If you do spend the points on special weapons, they should presumably be valuable enough and costed appropriately to be a viable option.
I find it much more fun to have a Sergeant with an interesting weapon, even if it never really gets used, rather than "yeah, here's my fourth sergeant with barebones weapons because I was trying to make my points stretch".
See, I'm one of those guys who will put cool equipment on the sergeants even when it's not optimal, but I still like having the chocie of fielding a "naked" sergeant because it helps the other sergeants stand out more. My bolter sergeant is pragmatic and uses his bionic eye to get the most out of the humble bolter. My lightning claw + meltabombs guy is a little more of a reckless glory hound who relies on his squadmate's flamer to help thin the hordes he often throws his squad at. My power fist guy is also a glory hound but likes to go straight toward the biggest target on the battlefield with his meltagunner squad mate.
In 10th edition, a lot of that personality is soured by the knowledge that I'm being charged points for gear I'm not taking or for assumptions that I'm optimizing my squad's loadout when I'm not.
Under my proposal above, I can pay points to make the sergeant more powerful or not. If I do pay points to make him stronger, the price should match the utility of the power increase. If it isn't worth considering taking the sergeant wargear package, then the package is too expensive.
The thing about free upgrades is it’s still costing points, just a negative points inflicted on people who don’t want those upgrades for what ever reason.
It kinda makes it lame when everything is just take best as the game has given up a lot of its own balance mechanisms over the years.
Which in turn erodes what makes the game narrative cool, where you can have similar forces deployed in different ways. Subtle and interesting.
Apple fox wrote: The thing about free upgrades is it’s still costing points, just a negative points inflicted on people who don’t want those upgrades for what ever reason.
It kinda makes it lame when everything is just take best as the game has given up a lot of its own balance mechanisms over the years.
Which in turn erodes what makes the game narrative cool, where you can have similar forces deployed in different ways. Subtle and interesting.
Exactly. You could take two tyranid armies with similar model types, but one bare bones and one upgraded heavily.
The barebones would be far more numerous, whilst the more upgraded with have fewer models, but work better individually because of their upgrades.
So you'd get two very different play experiences and styles and the points difference would be intended to balance out the fact that one is highly upgraded and the other isn't.
Right now if you did that you'd have exactly the same number of models on the table and the highly upgraded would be superior without question. Granted GW also stripped out a lot of upgrades, so this mostly ends up talking about weapon options (As they are one of the few bits left in).
Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
7th edition nearly killed 40k for me. Its balance was so insanely bad and the lore was super stale. We are in a better situation now but I still hate the fact the Ynnari got shafted despite being built up to be so important early on during 8th edition.
waefre_1 wrote: Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
it feels like just another symptom of not being able to deal with the competitive players breaking the game, so just giving up and acting as though everyone will do it. Just assume everyone always takes the best option and the "problem" goes away.
Same thing happened in world of warcraft; despite the best efforts players keep optimizing 100% of everything so rather than try to stop it or change that mentality, they just gave in and design around it as though everyone will do it.
