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I've been enamored with 40k off and on for years, have purchased a few models here and there, and always wanted to get into the game, but every year it just keeps getting more and more bloated with power creep and bigger better units, 5 billion wargear options, not to mention the literal books out about the fluff. Basically it all seems so impenetrable to someone who hasn't been in it for the last few decades. Yesterday the itch came back to me again as I found some old models in my closet, so I decided to find some youtubers who record their games... and it's just so much. So many special rules, so many rerolls, so many special characters. Decided to check out killteam videos too, and I personally found it too limited and the rules fairly counter-intuitive for creating a tactical or strategic game. It's a bit of a bummer because iv'e spent damn near 20 years wanting to play this game, and now that I can finally afford to do it I realize the actual game side of it just doesn't tickle my fancy. I may pick up some deathwatch figures anyway because they look so good and would be fun to paint, but I wish I could actually play with them.

The fluff in general I like when it is reduced to short descriptions of an army or event, the basic inspiration behind them. However GW seems hell bent on dialing everything up to eleventy to the point that the player can't really interpret anything on their own. Like why do space marines need a codex for every chapter? Can't the chapters just be something to inspire a paint job and suggest a way to build your army without literally creating new rules specific to the chapter replete with 36 novels revealing every aspect of that chapter's existence?

I understand this is all subjective, and that some people really love the vastness of it all and the fluff, but to me it's an impediment.

I'm tempted to create entirely new core mechanics to create the sort of game I wish and always imagined 40k to be, but I don't know if there is an audience for it. Are there people interested in enjoying 40k in a different way? Taking the lovely models and placing them in a game system designed around more tactical gameplay and stronger army identity? Inspired by but not beholden to the fluff?

I am the exact opposite. The models are nice, and GW have always made very nice (if not the best looking) models for any time period, but for me the love was always in the fluff, specifically from 3rd edition up until Gathering Storm ruined everything forever.

GW's rules have always been crap, and will continue to be crap, because of the way IP works meaning no-one can actually make a competing ruleset (look how The 9th Age turned out, for example).

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:
I've been enamored with 40k off and on for years, have purchased a few models here and there, and always wanted to get into the game, but every year it just keeps getting more and more bloated with power creep and bigger better units, 5 billion wargear options, not to mention the literal books out about the fluff. Basically it all seems so impenetrable to someone who hasn't been in it for the last few decades. Yesterday the itch came back to me again as I found some old models in my closet, so I decided to find some youtubers who record their games... and it's just so much. So many special rules, so many rerolls, so many special characters. Decided to check out killteam videos too, and I personally found it too limited and the rules fairly counter-intuitive for creating a tactical or strategic game. It's a bit of a bummer because iv'e spent damn near 20 years wanting to play this game, and now that I can finally afford to do it I realize the actual game side of it just doesn't tickle my fancy. I may pick up some deathwatch figures anyway because they look so good and would be fun to paint, but I wish I could actually play with them.

The fluff in general I like when it is reduced to short descriptions of an army or event, the basic inspiration behind them. However GW seems hell bent on dialing everything up to eleventy to the point that the player can't really interpret anything on their own. Like why do space marines need a codex for every chapter? Can't the chapters just be something to inspire a paint job and suggest a way to build your army without literally creating new rules specific to the chapter replete with 36 novels revealing every aspect of that chapter's existence?

I understand this is all subjective, and that some people really love the vastness of it all and the fluff, but to me it's an impediment.

I'm tempted to create entirely new core mechanics to create the sort of game I wish and always imagined 40k to be, but I don't know if there is an audience for it. Are there people interested in enjoying 40k in a different way? Taking the lovely models and placing them in a game system designed around more tactical gameplay and stronger army identity? Inspired by but not beholden to the fluff?

Maybe play a few games and see if you really don't like it? You don't need to read the Black Library to play the game.

I fall broadly into the camp of Loving the models, disliking the game and having a bit of a love-hate relationship with the fluff.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Maybe play a few games and see if you really don't like it? You don't need to read the Black Library to play the game.

Sometimes you can just tell if something isn't really designed in a way that you will enjoy.

I find there was a sweet spot for me, and I've liked pretty much everything less as the game has moved on, to the point where I'm going back and re-writing old rules so I can keep using old minis and ignoring newer lore.

The models are definitely the biggest draw for me. I don't play too much 40k nowadays, but I still buy kit after kit to use for painting projects or to press into service as TTRPG miniatures.

The ruleset is sorta a whatever-thing for me. I've only been around since 5th edition and every edition there are things I like and things I don't like about the ruleset. I'm a bit guilty of rose-coloured 5e glasses myself, but I think the things I want rolled back are very different from the things other people want rolled back. I like auras, am OK with stratagems, and don't think losing AV is that big of a loss (this coming from an old mech-guard scumbag, even), but at the same time I want subfaction rules, 'super doctrines', multiple detachments, allies and superheavies to go away. Also, speaking as someone who's only ever played the special snowflake marines (DA, SW, DW...), I still think those should go away, too. But I'll keep playing them as long they're around.
Long story short, the rules are just another excuse to buy, build, paint, and use the models, which I love-love-love.

As for the fluff? There's some really cool little tidbits here and there. The basic narrative of the Horus Heresy and how it informs the setting has always been cool. There's usually some really amusing stuff in the 'faction timeline' portion of every codex. I love the fluff when it's tongue-in-cheek, unabashedly hilarious, and just as fun as it is really, really dark. But some of the more 'serious'-in-tone fluff bits can feel a bit incongruent when the setting is just so inherently over the top and funny, even if the humour is rather dark.

But I'll probably always be buying the models as long as there are models to buy. There are a few misses here and there, but for the most part there are several kits that come out each year that I invariably want.

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Maybe play a few games and see if you really don't like it? You don't need to read the Black Library to play the game.

Sometimes you can just tell if something isn't really designed in a way that you will enjoy.

Fair point. Design away!

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:
. However GW seems hell bent on dialing everything up to eleventy

I’ve always thought this was the whole point of 40K. It’s called Warhammer 40,000 after all. Forty-Thousand. That’s a big number. What an absurd, ridiculous, yet absolutely perfect name for a tabletop game. I’d expect things to be over the top.

For me, it's models over fluff over rules every time.

I stopped playing at the start of 6th edition.
I still have enough of my eldar army to play 5th/6th games.

I bought a tau hammerhead just to light it up. The engines and the railgun glow).
Same with the necron monolith (the crystal and the portal both flash on mine).
I never had any intention of playing either army, it was purely the models that made me want those two.

Nah for me the scale is too small to love the models. Maybe once you start getting into tank, LoW and knight sized models. But your basic infantry sized model is just too small to get the detail I'd call "nice".

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Maybe play a few games and see if you really don't like it? You don't need to read the Black Library to play the game.

Sometimes you can just tell if something isn't really designed in a way that you will enjoy.

Fair point. Design away!

I sure love this fallacy. I don't need to be a master chef to know that a hákarl and peanut butter sandwich isn't going to be something I will enjoy eating.

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:

I'm tempted to create entirely new core mechanics to create the sort of game I wish and always imagined 40k to be, but I don't know if there is an audience for it. Are there people interested in enjoying 40k in a different way? Taking the lovely models and placing them in a game system designed around more tactical gameplay and stronger army identity? Inspired by but not beholden to the fluff?

I'm sorry, but I just can't take you seriously. First you complain about all the fluff/lore/whatever you prefer to call it. And then here you wax on about making a homebrew system involving stronger army identities....
What the hell do you think all that lore (& rules) you were complaining about was establishing? It's the reason* there's numerous Marine factions etc.

*Ignoring making $/sales - because that's the underlying reason for the whole damned thing.

Another who is a fan of the models, and somewhat of the fluff - but doesn’t like the game much.

The good news is that there are other rule sets you can use (one page 40K, beyond the gates of 40K, etc.) to handle the game, despite what GW would have believe.

ccs wrote:

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:

I'm tempted to create entirely new core mechanics to create the sort of game I wish and always imagined 40k to be, but I don't know if there is an audience for it. Are there people interested in enjoying 40k in a different way? Taking the lovely models and placing them in a game system designed around more tactical gameplay and stronger army identity? Inspired by but not beholden to the fluff?

I'm sorry, but I just can't take you seriously. First you complain about all the fluff/lore/whatever you prefer to call it. And then here you wax on about making a homebrew system involving stronger army identities....
What the hell do you think all that lore (& rules) you were complaining about was establishing? It's the reason* there's numerous Marine factions etc.

*Ignoring making $/sales - because that's the underlying reason for the whole damned thing.

The rules haven't really made army identities stronger, though. Chapter tactics and stratagems are, at best, band-aids.

ccs wrote:

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:

I'm tempted to create entirely new core mechanics to create the sort of game I wish and always imagined 40k to be, but I don't know if there is an audience for it. Are there people interested in enjoying 40k in a different way? Taking the lovely models and placing them in a game system designed around more tactical gameplay and stronger army identity? Inspired by but not beholden to the fluff?

I'm sorry, but I just can't take you seriously. First you complain about all the fluff/lore/whatever you prefer to call it. And then here you wax on about making a homebrew system involving stronger army identities....
What the hell do you think all that lore (& rules) you were complaining about was establishing? It's the reason* there's numerous Marine factions etc.

*Ignoring making $/sales - because that's the underlying reason for the whole damned thing.

The issue is that the fluff is hardly utilized in any coherent way when it comes to army rules. A quick example being lasguns, rather than doing the obvious they turn the platform into a couple dozen different wargear choices spread over half a dozen models. A quick look at the rudimentary fluff surrounding the lasgun(before they burry any possibility of coherency by "waxing on" about it's history and variations} as well as applying a basic understanding of lasers in the real world, you could have IG guardsmen able to converge fire as a single attack that does greater damage. Every guardsmen that hits, adds strength to the attack. That is one small example where the GW approach of more more more to everything actually reduces the flavor of the faction because the variations all end up being bolter or shotgun equivalents with slightly different stats, where as my idea of having convergent fire opens up a really unique experience for the IG player, and has a lot of tactical flexibility and requires some thinking about how best to attack, instead of just trying to drown the opponent with dice every turn. Which approach do you think better defines the army from a mechanics perspective? GW simply churns out stories to justify rather shallow mechanics.

You will probably be tempted to think about the above example within the context of a 40k game where that is the only change and tell me it wouldn't work for a variety of reasons, and you'd be right if that was the only change happening, but I am changing the entire system. Getting rid of traditional turns, making movement, cover, LOS, morale, and resource management more integral to the experience, getting rid of the hit/wound/save convention, getting rid of "phases" reducing model count, etc.

I guess I half agree, in that the models are definitely the strongest part of GW's current 40k offerings, with the game coming second and the lore third. Which is a shame, because it was the lore that got me and I expect almost everyone else interested in the first place. But the recent stuff on that front has been of a quality varying from mediocre and pointless (PA) to downright terrible (everything to do with primaris and guilliman).

I like a lot of the models, I'm increasingly less enamored with the game as time goes on and haven't even been able to play for most of this year. I'm split on the fluff, there's tons of genuinely awesome stuff that's incredibly inspiring that GW has done, but most of the stuff for the last few years just has not been my thing at all, and the more HH fluff I get the less interested I am in the setting. The writing is a whole lot more hamfisted and fanfic-ey in general, with a lot of 2-dimensional paint-by-numbers feel, at least to me.

It's the Super-hero-ification of the setting that gets to me the most. The writing itself has never been of particularly high quality overall, but the tone has changed significantly since Guilliman and the Primaribros came along.

The models are great, but I only care about them because of the the fluff.

 harlokin wrote:
The models are great, but I only care about them because of the the fluff.

^^This.

Game is a very distant 3rd for me. Started in 5th which remains my favourite edition. Played less and less from 6th through to 8th and can't get excited about 9th at all. Every time I try to look at the core rules or threads on Dakka discussing the rules, it just comes across as an overcomplicated mess that my poor little brain cannot understand. Command Points and Stratagems I particularly dislike. For the first time I haven't even bought the BRB or any codexes for 9th edition.

All a personal opinion of course. The whole thing is very subjective.

Breton wrote:
Nah for me the scale is too small to love the models. Maybe once you start getting into tank, LoW and knight sized models. But your basic infantry sized model is just too small to get the detail I'd call "nice".

Wow, to me it's the opposite. I love infantries but I can't stand centerpiece models, flyers and oversized heroes. I consider old metal/finecast Ghaz (still my favorite 40k model ever) a massive model for example, just like a dreadnought for a SM army is a massive model. Things like knights IMHO shouldn't even exist. Oh, and scenic bases are also a cancer.

About the actual thread I also love the models, most of them at least, I like the game (all the editions actually, except 1st and 2nd because I never got the chance to play them) but not using skew tournament lists, and I'm ok with the fluff. I mean fluff used to be great in the past, it's still great for some factions, but when GW decided to release primaris they basically killed all my interest in the lore.

Plenty people who just buy models without playing game. Hell whole reason for forgeworld to exist is to get more money out of such people

I enjoy the game, despite having gripes about every edition I've played (but who doesn't?). Same with the fluff and models: I'm not too big on the new "Super Hero" primaris fluff, but there's still some great stuff being written. I particularly like Chris Wraight's work, especially The Lords of Silence, but I wish ADB would return to the Eighth Legion, and Guy Haley should never be allowed to touch them again. As for models, I mostly like older stuff, the only new models that have gotten me excited were the new csm, havocs, and Chaos Knight kits.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I particularly like Chris Wraight's work, especially The Lords of Silence, but I wish ADB would return to the Eighth Legion, and Guy Haley should never be allowed to touch them again. As for models, I mostly like older stuff, the only new models that have gotten me excited were the new csm, havocs, and Chaos Knight kits.

Couldn't agree more, Lords of Silence was really really great, and ADB doing more Night Lords (and no more Talon of Horus style stuff) would be wonderful.

Blastaar wrote:

ccs wrote:

incomprehensiblepilot wrote:

I'm tempted to create entirely new core mechanics to create the sort of game I wish and always imagined 40k to be, but I don't know if there is an audience for it. Are there people interested in enjoying 40k in a different way? Taking the lovely models and placing them in a game system designed around more tactical gameplay and stronger army identity? Inspired by but not beholden to the fluff?

I'm sorry, but I just can't take you seriously. First you complain about all the fluff/lore/whatever you prefer to call it. And then here you wax on about making a homebrew system involving stronger army identities....
What the hell do you think all that lore (& rules) you were complaining about was establishing? It's the reason* there's numerous Marine factions etc.

*Ignoring making $/sales - because that's the underlying reason for the whole damned thing.

The rules haven't really made army identities stronger, though. Chapter tactics and stratagems are, at best, band-aids.

Oh the current mechanics of Chapter Tactics, strats, Command Points, etc is pure gak.
But in a few editions, when this design has run it's course, the stuff contained in those things will still be with us. The ideas contained in those things do add identity to the armies. How you implement that rules-wise edition to edition....
And this stuff is absolutely contributing to the identities of armies right now - ask any new player who doesn't have our decades & multiple editions of experience.

I'm probably an outlier. I enjoy Warhammer 40k because it's a turn-based strategy game I can play with friends, the fluff comes second and then models. I occasionally do buy a model because I like its look or for completion, but I rarely buy anything that does not add anything to my games. For example, I'd never buy a mekboy workshop unless it actually gets rules that make sense.

I want to like the game above all else. I am more passionate about the game then anything else because games are my passion. But god damn is it a rough thing to even like.

Then fluff, the outlandish stories can be fun in a broad way.

Then the models. Too pricey. Many too outdated. GWs release schedule has nothing to do with supporting the game.

I honestly don't like 40k that much. If given the choice I'd.play nearly anything else but unfortunately my group has chosen 40k as its game du jour so I'm stuck with it. About the only aspect I like anymore is the aesthetics of non-Astartes Imperium stuff.

Fluff:
Garbage. Marines seem to be more numerous than the Imperial Guard, Chaos are one note cartoon villains, Xenos are barely worth mentioning, any mystery and horror that the tyranids and necrons have is being sapped away from them. Remember when tyranids were an unstoppable, unfeeling inter-galactic mystery? Now the Hive Mind is a warp entity that feels emotions and eats the warp or something? Remember when Necrons were super advanced soul harvesting servants of terrifying and ancient star gods? Now they're grumpy old pokemon trainers. Remember when the Eldar were a dying race? Now they die by the millions almost daily and they don't seem to be diminishing.

Rules:
I don't mind the rules being garbage, its par for the course with GW. But rules are released with such frequency the game is constantly shifting every few months and each new codex seems to be determined to add more book keeping to the game. I haven't even read the combat protocals thing for necrons because I just cannot be arsed with it. I just want to put models on the table and play the game, not faff around with constantly reminding myself to check what special rules I get this turn what units actually get them, what secondary objectives I have etc. They've added a lot of extra faffing to a game that really didn't need it.

Models:
One think I will give GW is they have great models, and its about the only thing keeping me in the game. Except I can't justify the costs for most of them. I don't enjoy the game enough, especially since I started getting into board games. Why spend €50 on 5 models that I might use once every few months when I can get a board game which probably has MUCH better rules, better gameplay, will be played more often and in less time?

Currently I've been making a lot of progress and am into the last stretch of painting my not insubstantial 40k armies which is keeping me kind of interested and once I have I doubt I'll ever really pay attention to 40k again. I just never enjoyed it as much as WHFB or Malifaux or Infinity or any of the 60-odd and growing board games I own. Hell, I'd be more willing to play a game of Warmahordes at this point over 40k (as long as its a no theme game).

I want to like the game but 8th and 9th have really done their best to dissuade me from playing.

The new models are nice in their way, but I don't like the scale-creep, and the ever increasing price-tag means I'm disinclined to even bother with them. I find it much more fun and rewarding to convert my own instead.

As for the fluff, I liked it a few editions ago but became increasingly less enamoured from around late-5th onwards. I don't like how some armies (e.g. Necrons) have been completely rewritten, and in a way that (IMO, obviously) makes them far less compelling as a result. Added to that, I really hate the increasing fixation on special characters - both in fluff and in models. I hated, for example, that the Swarmlord was retrospectively inserted into virtually every previous engagement involving Tyranids. I also just don't like the general fixation on everything having to involve one or more major characters, partially because it always ends up shoving other (often more interesting) characters out of the limelight, and also because it makes the 40k universe feel tiny.

Given that 40k supposedly has one of the largest scales in any fantasy or sci-fi medium, surely these characters should almost always be distant figures? In the same way that The Emperor's presence is felt through his edicts and creed, as opposed to by him just randomly turning up to participate in minor (or even major) planetary skirmishes.


Anyway, going back to the rules, it remains my opinion that 8th (and, by extension, 9th) took the game in completely the wrong direction. Shallow core rules are in no way praiseworthy, nor did they fix the problems with 7th. If anything, they have guaranteed that many of the same problems would (and have) recurred, because there are so few ways to meaningfully distinguishing models and wargear that they basically have to pile on the special rules. We can't have USRs anymore, because then GW can't fix individual units. Just ignore the fact that they never fix individual units anyway, that's completely besides the point. Nope, instead every unit must have a different name for the exact same ability that you've seen on a hundred other models. And then we need subfaction rules, on top of all the special rules. Okay... I guess?

Oh, but we also need Stratagems, apparently. A mechanic that has absolutely no strategic merit and that is so disconnected from the rest of the game that you might as well be determining the outcome of a given action by challenging your opponent to a game of Yugioh. And then we also need yet more rules to reward players for having their entire army be from the same codex. Even though the army-creation rules already encourage this perfectly well.

When 10th edition rolls around, the editor will have to be armed with waders and pruning shears.