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Now, this may seem like a weird thing to say - a game depicting the most violent future ever, preoccupied with killing? Never!

My point is that, when I was playing in older editions, tabling the opponent was a lot less common. You had units which your guns couldn't hurt, and that was your fault for not bringing anti-tank, and you had units which were too big to hurt, and that was your fault for not bringing enough template weapons. But more importantly, the game was fought over objectives, and it was rare for an army to be lowered below 25% of their starting models by turn 6/7, at least in my meta. Reading through old white dwarf batreps has reinforced this for me.

I think that GW lost their way as soon as they started trying to make units capable of deleting units. When people found that you couldn't kill hordes fast enough to table the opponent, higher RoF weapons started to appear. When players found that they couldn't kill a pure-tank list, most of which were toting these new high-RoF weapons, they brought in hull points to make tanks vanish when the paint got chipped.

Now we have repulsors who can reliably delete near enough any non-superheavy in a turn, every turn. We have leman russes shooting their 20-shot guns twice a turn. We have ex-blast weapons which are brilliant at killing tanks and overkill for infantry.

It used to be that if you found yourself facing a horde, you had to think tactically on how to pull a win out of a game where it was unfeasable to kill them all. Now, everything is tuned to the max for killing and the tactics are simply what to kill first. A whole army of terminators was hard to kill, but easy to outmanoeuvre. Now, with everyone tuned up for maximum damage output, bringing terminators is a joke. It used to be terminators would shrug off anything except anti-tank weapons. Units throwing out bucketloads of dice was the exception, like a full ork horde making it into combat intact. Now, 3 aggressors put out enough firepower to suck the fun out of playing against them.

They made the game too fast. First you could run instead of shoot, then you got a 2D6" charge, then they brought in rules to let you move, advance and charge. You used to get 1-2 turns grace before combat, then they made turn 1 or 2 charges almost a given, then they ramped up the firepower to compensate, and now here we are, almost everything dies almost every game. I think that they could tone it down significantly if they just slowed everything down - drop charges back to 6", advancing to D3". Then they wouldn't need a gun that puts out 20 shots at a time, twice per turn, or units which fire 12+2D6 shots per model in units up to 6, rerolling yadda yadda yadda. everyone could just breathe we could return to needing 2 turns to kill things if you don't focus on them, and you'll have a chance to react to your opponent instead of numbly watching your army get destroyed in a single turn.

That's my thoughts, anyway.

You are not wrong.

I think nostalgia has colored your glasses. Leaf Blower's aim was to totally remove your army from the table. You can't hold objectives if you don't have models.

There's nothing really wrong with the game being front loaded into the first 3 turns and the remaining turns are making the best of bad situations to outmaneuver with what is left. The missions you play have a lot to do with how you approach things.

Note that I'm not suggesting the game is currently balance or that IGOUGO is without issues.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think nostalgia has colored your glasses. Leaf Blower's aim was to totally remove your army from the table. You can't hold objectives if you don't have models.

There's nothing really wrong with the game being front loaded into the first 3 turns and the remaining turns are making the best of bad situations to outmaneuver with what is left. The missions you play have a lot to do with how you approach things.

Note that I'm not suggesting the game is currently balance or that IGOUGO is without issues.

So maouvres as it is now, should not matter in a wargame?

While some of your points are accurate others are definitely biased based on your local meta, even going back to 5th edition in our local meta it was very common to see someone tabled before turn 5.

We do definitely see earlier charges now than were common before. Tanks going to wounds I think was a good change the old system was to rng a tank could die from 1 shot or be 100% unkillable.

An old school list looks like this, and would come in at less than 800pts before wargear.

- Captain
- Chaplain
- 3x10 Tacticals
- Assault Squad
- Dreadnought
- Predator

Does that look much like what people are fielding in 2000pt tournaments?

It's Apoc at this point. Flyer wings, knight armies, Primarchs and flocks of Daemon Princes, etc. More points cuts are coming too in CA, so expect this trend to continue!

I agree, but like to point out that the extra firepower was there before assaults got faster to compensate for that.
I remember turn 3 being the turn I'd usually call the Waaagh! in 5th because that was the turn when all the assaults were happening. Many codices and editions later, by turn 3 I have lost four times the number of boyz I used to field ten years ago.

Yoyoyo wrote:
An old school list looks like this, and would come in at less than 800pts before wargear.

- Captain
- Chaplain
- 3x10 Tacticals
- Assault Squad
- Dreadnought
- Predator

Does that look much like what people are fielding in 2000pt tournaments?

It's Apoc at this point. Flyer wings, knight armies, Primarchs and flocks of Daemon Princes, etc. More points cuts are coming too in CA, so expect this trend to continue!

At this point i play at 1000 pts

Not Online!!! wrote:
At this point i play at 1000 pts

Oldhammer and beer + pretzels vibe are better for your mental health anyways

Yoyoyo wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
At this point i play at 1000 pts

Oldhammer and beer + pretzels vibe are better for your mental health anyways

considering my group roped me in as the BBEG with my renegades and explicitly demanded that i use IA 13 again, i would tend to agree with that.

I think you're misidentifying your issue. You are concerned that too many armies have too many tools available to kill hordes even if the army is not tooled out to deal with hordes, and that armies tooled out to deal with hordes are hilariously capable of dealing with Hordes.

I say this because the game is definitely not just about killing things. Killing things is the primary method of restricting your opponent's ability to achieve the game's objectives, but in both regular 40k games, ETC, and ITC, the objectives can often be something other than killing things (ITC has "kill more" as an objective, but otherwise it's entirely possible to win an ITC game with one killing 1 enemy unit a turn). On top of that, there are many units that can withstand a huge amount of punishment that you need special tools to deal with (T8 enemies like Knights and Tank Commanders, units with multiple layers of defenses like Plaguebearers, or units with massive penalties to hit like Alaitoc Flyers).

Right now the only Horde armies that really stands much of a chance in the competitive scene are Plaguebearer Spam and Orks that toss boyz out as a means of a speed-bump while their big gunz go to work. Other horde builds just can't push it through. Even then, though, that's talking Competitive Only, which is crazy strong builds, and even at that level there are 2 builds for going a horde army! If you do a horde army at your local level, I'm sure you can find success. If your local meta is strongly anti-horde to the point that only a competitive horde list will win, well then you either need to adjust what your game plan is with your current army, or you need to start looking at a different army with a different game plan. See if any friends will lend you some models to try something new out.

Yoyoyo wrote:
An old school list looks like this, and would come in at less than 800pts before wargear.

- Captain
- Chaplain
- 3x10 Tacticals
- Assault Squad
- Dreadnought
- Predator

Does that look much like what people are fielding in 2000pt tournaments?

It's Apoc at this point. Flyer wings, knight armies, Primarchs and flocks of Daemon Princes, etc. More points cuts are coming too in CA, so expect this trend to continue!

Pthth, I remember lists with a Captain, Librarian, two Terminator squads and a Dreadnaught coming in at 2000 points. I also remember turn 2 or 3 tablings being incredibly common in 2nd and 3rd.

laughs in virusbomb.

The Newman wrote:
Pthth, I remember lists with a Captain, Librarian, two Terminator squads and a Dreadnaught coming in at 2000 points. I also remember turn 2 or 3 tablings being incredibly common in 2nd and 3rd.

I'm sure it was easier to pack in your car though!

 Jidmah wrote:
I agree, but like to point out that the extra firepower was there before assaults got faster to compensate for that.
I remember turn 3 being the turn I'd usually call the Waaagh! in 5th because that was the turn when all the assaults were happening. Many codices and editions later, by turn 3 I have lost four times the number of boyz I used to field ten years ago.

That's because it was such a massive slog to get across the table with terrain rules back then tripping over every rock while the enemy back pedals
.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think nostalgia has colored your glasses. Leaf Blower's aim was to totally remove your army from the table. You can't hold objectives if you don't have models.

There's nothing really wrong with the game being front loaded into the first 3 turns and the remaining turns are making the best of bad situations to outmaneuver with what is left. The missions you play have a lot to do with how you approach things.

Note that I'm not suggesting the game is currently balance or that IGOUGO is without issues.

So maouvres as it is now, should not matter in a wargame?

That's not what I said.

Yoyoyo wrote:
An old school list looks like this, and would come in at less than 800pts before wargear.

- Captain
- Chaplain
- 3x10 Tacticals
- Assault Squad
- Dreadnought
- Predator

Does that look much like what people are fielding in 2000pt tournaments?

It's Apoc at this point. Flyer wings, knight armies, Primarchs and flocks of Daemon Princes, etc. More points cuts are coming too in CA, so expect this trend to continue!

If you primaris-fy this list, you have:
- Gravis Captain
- Primaris Chaplain
- 3x 10 intercessors
- Inceptor Squad
- Conteptor Dreadnought
- Repulsor Executioner

That's about 1400 points, toss in another primaris unit of your choice and you're at a commonly played point level, with the same amount of models as in the past, and it probably won't do terrible either.

No, just the essence of what that great "frontloading" has done to 40k.

TheAvengingKnee wrote:
While some of your points are accurate others are definitely biased based on your local meta, even going back to 5th edition in our local meta it was very common to see someone tabled before turn 5.

We do definitely see earlier charges now than were common before. Tanks going to wounds I think was a good change the old system was to rng a tank could die from 1 shot or be 100% unkillable.

Nearly no one misses the old tank rules were I play, they were immersive but just horrible to play with

Yoyoyo wrote:

The Newman wrote:
Pthth, I remember lists with a Captain, Librarian, two Terminator squads and a Dreadnaught coming in at 2000 points. I also remember turn 2 or 3 tablings being incredibly common in 2nd and 3rd.

I'm sure it was easier to pack in your car though!

That 13-model army weighed more than the 60-model army I take to the club now, and also took up almost as much space because of how much padding it required to move safely.

I don't miss full-metal armies.

I agree.

First and foremost, I blame the AP system. It has gotten out of control. -AP is doled out like candy on Halloween and has ultimately rendered armor saves useless.

I also blame the ITC and Nova formats because their meddling with rules foster this style of game play.

 oni wrote:
I also blame the ITC and Nova formats because their meddling with rules foster this style of game play.

Why do people always say ITC meddles with rules? They have their own missions, which whatever, there's a million and one missions and they just have something consistent. The only rule they change is the 1st floor of ruins blocking line of sight. And if you say "if it sits it fits" well that was an event's choice (the So Cal Open) and isn't a rule they say that you must use at an ITC event or anything. What other rule am I missing that they've changed? And if you say it's because of their past actions in 7th edition, that's over 2 years ago now, and 7th edition was a broken farce (as in literally the rules made games actively bad). Get over it.

I think the AP and save system needs to have made some changes early into the edition. Changing Invulnerable Saves to work similarly to Ward Saves would have alleviated some of the issues with the edition early on, but now that high AP and Invulns are given out like candy, I don't think you can undo it.

The Newman wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
An old school list looks like this, and would come in at less than 800pts before wargear.

- Captain
- Chaplain
- 3x10 Tacticals
- Assault Squad
- Dreadnought
- Predator

Does that look much like what people are fielding in 2000pt tournaments?

It's Apoc at this point. Flyer wings, knight armies, Primarchs and flocks of Daemon Princes, etc. More points cuts are coming too in CA, so expect this trend to continue!

Pthth, I remember lists with a Captain, Librarian, two Terminator squads and a Dreadnaught coming in at 2000 points. I also remember turn 2 or 3 tablings being incredibly common in 2nd and 3rd.

It has been a long time since armies that small were 2K. In 5th : Captain - 100, Chaplain - 100, 3x10 Tacs - 510, Assault - 190, dreadnought - 105, Predator - 60. With wargear you're looking at close to 1500.

addnid wrote:

TheAvengingKnee wrote:
While some of your points are accurate others are definitely biased based on your local meta, even going back to 5th edition in our local meta it was very common to see someone tabled before turn 5.

We do definitely see earlier charges now than were common before. Tanks going to wounds I think was a good change the old system was to rng a tank could die from 1 shot or be 100% unkillable.

Nearly no one misses the old tank rules were I play, they were immersive but just horrible to play with

Same where I play, they were not immersive and generally slowed the game down a lot with all the armor facing arguments and firing arc arguments, but as a different thread is showing there are people who want it back.

 Jidmah wrote:
If you primaris-fy this list, you have:
- Gravis Captain
- Primaris Chaplain
- 3x 10 intercessors
- Inceptor Squad
- Conteptor Dreadnought
- Repulsor Executioner

That's about 1400 points, toss in another primaris unit of your choice and you're at a commonly played point level, with the same amount of models as in the past, and it probably won't do terrible either.

Yes except almost all of those models double the firepower and resiliency of the army, that's why there's a ~600pt delta between them!

8th has been officially painted into a corner faster than you can say “matt ward”.

The only way to fix 40k is to release a new edition and sell you 123 more rule sources.

9th edition is just around the corner. Surely this is a sign of a healthy game.

It's in large parts the game overcompensating for unkillable death stars in 7th.

7th kinda went off the deep end with things you couldn't reasonably hurt, thus in reverse 8th went off the deep end on the other side with everything dying, usually long before the game is even half done.

I was annoyed by this lately too. Some ideas I had included:

A drip-feed of units onto the board - like each player can only have one unit per Battlefield Role per Detachment, and once that unit is removed they can bring another one on at reinforcements.

Allowing units to be recycled back onto the board.

Give units actions they can do besides move and shoot to address each other (hide, dig-in, fortify, raise a family). Physical position and the 1" rule means that some units can block others, while shooting and combat address stuff directly. Switching Overwatch back to something a unit is on rather than an automatic thing they do when charged.

Part of this was borrowing Plot Points from Pulp Alley, so that when a unit encounters a Plot Point/Objective they have to do something. Doesn't really gel with the Warhammer turn structure though.

Darsath wrote:
I think the AP and save system needs to have made some changes early into the edition. Changing Invulnerable Saves to work similarly to Ward Saves would have alleviated some of the issues with the edition early on, but now that high AP and Invulns are given out like candy, I don't think you can undo it.

Would be nice if they had some sort of save that was given due to environmental factors like terrain, units being the way of a shot, etc that wasn't reduced by AP..... Not sure such a crazy concept has ever been done before but maybe it would help keep the game from being a total blood bath.

Snarkyness aside the game has really gone overboard with firepower and their recent addiction to MtG style wombo combos has made the game into an excercise in inflicting rapid mass casualties.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
It's in large parts the game overcompensating for unkillable death stars in 7th.

7th kinda went off the deep end with things you couldn't reasonably hurt, thus in reverse 8th went off the deep end on the other side with everything dying, usually long before the game is even half done.

Worst part is that it wouldn't of been that hard to fix. Nerf invisibility, cap FNPs to maybe 4+, and cap or outright remove rerollable saves. That and reduce the range that Lookout Sir had.

I think implementing the obscurement and range penalty rules from Kill Team would make a huge difference to early-turn lethality, with minimal impact to the overall rules.

It is contingent on players using enough terrain, though. Most tables I see don't have anywhere near the recommended 25%.