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Fantasy, movement phase takes hours.

I've been beat and had fun, and I've been beat and been frustrated. A frustrating loss is where you lost because your concept, which is something that by the theme and background of the list should work, doesn't work because of the wierd assed crap that you end up facing. Recent 40K codices have done a much better job of making theme and power come together (Never thought I hear myself saying this after the dark days of 4th ed).

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Augustus wrote:The block maneuver game is a good game, it's common to all sorts of wargames, like ACW, Napoleonics, medieval and ancient games of all sorts, it is where all the block maneuver tactics come from that fantasy has. But when the crazy fantasy elements are added it circumvents that too often. That's when WHFB becomes a questions of whose gimmick works better instead of who maneuvered the best...

To be fair, that's why it's "Fantasy", not "Ancients"...

But to me, it seems ironic that the most ardent defenders of WFB claim Psychology to be a key selling point, yet top armies largely ignore it as Undead / Cold-Blooded / Stubborn. Or they will claim Movement to be key, but use massed Skink Skirmishers or else Bret / Empire / HE Cavalry to basically avoid it. Or they will claim Rank to be important, but use Flying Monsters to negate Rank. What's most odd to me is how Fantasy seems to be all about ignoring as much as possible of the "excellent" basic ruleset as can be possible.

Very good point. It's why the both games can become boring and stale. Like everyone taking units with Fearless or Inv Saves in 40k when they can.
Anything that ignores the basic ruleset to make something hard to kill can detract massively from the game.

I don't think it's so much ignoring the basic rules as ignoring the differences between units that the basic rules handle.

I think 40k has been improving in that regard. Lots of special rules have their results depend on the abilities of units now, instead of being flat (the effect of Fearless on No Retreat, Hit and Run, Counter-Assault, Preferred Enemy), and other special rules like Fleet are finding their way into the main rules.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Actually, if you consider that we're talking about games, and define "better" as "more fun", then 40k wins hands down.

You contradict yourself for stating your own opinion after slamming another opinion.

My opinion, Fantasy is a much better game rules wise, model wise (forgeworld being an exception), and enjoyment wise. The only thing that actually makes 40k appeal to me is the amazing background and wanting to represent that on the battlefield. I love my blocks of perfectly ranked infantry, my lines of shooting, my giant non-alien monsters, and the fact that if I'm shooting you and your really far away, I'm less likely to hit you. Or if my beefed out character smacks you in the face with his axe, your armour save goes down

Sure there's a power creep, but its only complained about by those who's army books haven't been updated yet, or Orcs and Empire or were updated just before it started. Sure there are tough builds, but they're not unbeatable, none of them are.

dogma wrote:
Though that may simply be because Dicemonkey can't seem to enter an argument without referencing a phallus.

Really? That should earn bonus points.

I like death, destruction, explosions, blowing up aliens with my legion of undying warriors that keep getting up,.........at least in the 4th edition, but the 40k is so much easier to relate to because it is in human nature to like to see explosions(and its much easier to imagine them against maybe a couple of dwarfs and skaven fighting with no big booms or the sound of a space marine blowing up and having the fine red mist spray every one within five feet of him) that is why 40 has more fans

Ok there seems a lot of argueement over this; so dunno if I'm going to add anything useful to this

I have played both 40k and Fantasy and there are some major points I want to bring up
40k Negitives
-The game has a very point and click feel to it. Thats not to say it does, but it can be easily argueed that "taking the right thing" means you have a lot more chance of winning without having to use it stratigicly.
-The game has a sense of unrealism; sure its sci-fi so its sposed to be like that, but generally in wargames you want some sense of it being somewhat realistic. 40k has excellent fluff but game wise that truely dosen't matter and combat is intirely unrealistic. Armor also seems far to powerful. There are other things that I'm not pointing out that lend to its sense of unrealism
-Powercreep; though seemly less then Fantasy there's a definiate feel of powercreep that is a lot more subtle and lends it self to a trying to maximazing builds.
-Neglect; this is the main reason I do not injoy 40k; it neglects armys it already has leaving them in the dust and instead focusing on base armys (Space Marines anyone?!) Not to mention the rumors of having Chaos Marines geting a couple new dexs.
This lends to a large bias feeling that utterly throw me from the 40k scene.

ok listed the Negitaves but it does have good postitives.
+Fluff; 40k has some of the most origional fluff I've seen around for sci-fi, sure it has fantasy elements but overal its a very well developed history. My own hate however is how they do not develop some of their fluff; obvious there there are Black Libary books and such for the character development; what I mean is that History wise it seems the universe seems to be relitive unchanged.
+Less "Fiddly" Now fiddly isn't a "bad thing" but its a higher learning curve and fantasy does have a higher learning curve that at first is hard to understand which I'm sure throws some players off. 40k is easier to learn and has tatical elements that are fun. (still I'd like to point out my negitave of point and click.)
There are more positives I'm sure but I'm pointing out the major ones that I origionally liked in 40k

On to fantasy
Negitaves; As said I love fantasy, never the less it does have some problems.
-Large Powercreep; The powercreep in fantasy in the last couple dexs has been pretty expenantial with Vampire Counts and Demons being the best armys in fantasy; however in the newst dex Mortals of Chaos you can tell they made an obvious attempt to cut down on the powercreep coming out with a dex that is decent but poor in comparison to the other new dexs. This does not fix the problem nor do I know what will but it is a pit fall of fantasy of late.
-Magic; this just me personally but magic can be a tad obtrusive and very chancy, some players may find magic fun I'm sure but I find magic to lend to a less tactical game.
-Lords; lords do seem a tad overpowered even for a fantasy game, I don't have a qualm against this as long as dex are balance; however as stated above that is a problem currently.

Positives
+Highly Tactical; the game more then 40k lends it self more to tactical advantage then having large "Big bad death star unit" Flanks negate powers and having a large tarpit unit can stop even the deadlest enemy. You can argue all you want that Leadership is to important but the fact is thats sposed to be more medieval battle-ish were moral was and is one of the most important factors. Also models that negate leadership often have their own pitfalls and such.
+Intresting Armys; the armys in fantasy you could arguee are unorigional however they are all well developed and no one army is focused on heavly which I love.
+Age group; now I'm not saying 40k has younger people as the people before did, but I am saying that 40k is more prone to arguements and fights leading to unfun games. Fantasy is a much more relaxed game were the rules are much better written and thus less agreements come up and even those that do seem a lot less heated the the debates I've had while playing 40k

Thats it sorry for the long post; hopefully I added something useful.

I want to use the LotR rule set so I can use a small amount of figures and have everyone one of them count like 40k. I bought another WAR starter box and I'm mounting them all on round bases. I'm gonna run to the GW store tomorrow and grab a LotR rulebook and see how easy it would be to adapt the rules to the stats of WAR figures.

It would be nice to play 250-500pt. games where every figure counted and contributed. A small skirmish game that can be played in under 2 hours.

Keeping the same movement and weapons skills from WAR and using the attack base from LotR......give me a few days and I'll post what I have. The dwarfs do look cool on round bases and ten of them around a leader and standard bearer look better with the 2" rule then grouped together in a regiment.

Victorraven wrote:Ok there seems a lot of argueement over this;

I have played both 40k and Fantasy

40k Negitives
-The game has a very point and click feel to it.

Thats not to say it does, but it can be easily argueed that "taking the right thing" means you have a lot more chance of winning without having to use it stratigicly.

Of course there is argument - this thread is basically - do you like vanilla or chocolate?

As have I and many of the others...

If, by "point and click", you mean a high degree and fineness of player control, I'd agree. That's a good thing, IMO, as it's what makes the game more engaging. What's a problem is when there is a significant imbalance in the control levels on both sides of the board. Compare with the bad old days of massed Bret cav dominating - that was a pure point-and-click army for WFB.

IMO, WFB is even more about taking the right thing than 40k.

lol tis fine if its an agreement sorta the point of the discussion; just didn't seem like there was much LOGICAL discussion.

as for vanilla or chocolate I was always more of a sherbet person.

I can see what you mean about Bret's but thats per say what I think your talking about which would be maximizing choice if I'm correct, they're army lends itself to a singular play still but most of the choices in the book are relatively good.
Of course there's always RAF, but thats rarely common any more and does as you said show true "Picking for maximization."

40k whole units will often never be used, sections disregarded simply because they are so much less viable then what else you can pick. You could argue the same for fantasy however its on a lot less grand scale because unlike 40k they don't focus on any one army and thus can update army's better.

take it as you will.

Having played both systems, this is what I think:

Fantasy has a much, much better ruleset. It kicks 40k's butt in this regard.

However, from what I've read and personally witnessed, the Army Books don't compliment the system well as there is a lot of power creep.

40k is a lot more simple. Its ruleset IMO sucks in almost every single way possible. Assaulting on rear armor? Running? 4+ cover saves abounding like guns in Sarah Palin's home? Ruins the game for me. (2 Demolisher shots having direct hits on a Terminator squad in cover produces only 2 kills?)

Its codices aren't nearly as bad though (with the exception of the Ork one) so that helps.

Fantasy wins for me because you can avoid the armies that are bad for the most part, but in 40k you can't really avoid the rules that are bad.

enmitee wrote:Fantasy, movement phase takes hours.

Orks, Infantry-heavy Imperial Guard, or Tyranids: Movement phase takes hours.

I'm a 40k player and a budding Fantasy player, and i have to say that if I had known about fantasy when I got into 40k all those years ago, I wouldn't have gotten into 40k.

Granted, I play Guard, so that may be a factor, but still, in my view, 40k is: generally pathetic in terms of balance, has a shoddy rules system, lacks tactics (as in, every game turns into a rugby scrum in the middle of the board, when both armies generally have guns), and basically does a far better job of capturing the "game" part of "wargame". Seriously, everything in 40k seems to be some sort of gamey gimmick.

Fantasy, though, has a far better balanced ruleset, actually has tactics, and, in my opinion, better overall.

Again, I am a rabid Guardsman, so I may be biased, but i'm doing my best to finish my Dwarf army, whereas my Catachans are remaining 2/3rds painted, and my Cadians are staying in their box.

Oh, and to those people who talk about Fantasy ignoring the rule set, I'd say 40k is far worse in that regard.

Movement phase takes hours in Fantasy? Since bloody when matey?

I use movement trays, and generally start assesing whats going where and why in my opponents turn. This means my movement phase is typically my shortest.

Longest phase for me is usually HTH, mainly because I get attacks by the bucket load, and need to carefully plan out which order to do the fighting in to gain maximum advantage. Good example was when I inadvertantly threw a game just the other day with a major cock up. Giant had charged the Skeletons (30 strong) in the front. General on Wyvern had engaged the Corpse Cart behind them on a favourable angle, and the Boarboyz had to charge the Spirit Host I had reduced to two wounds. Plan went fairly well, doing the General first who expectedly thumped the Corpse Cart, and followed up into the Rear of the Skellies. And then I got overexcited. Instead of doing the Boarboyz next, they could join the Giant in the front, I did the Giant. Killed 20 of the 30 Skellies between them, which wasn't enough. Both units pinned in place, and swiftly hacked down by my flatmates counter charges.

And this is what I genuinely love about Warhammer. Rarely is an army truly outclassed by the sheer presence of it's opponent, not as long as both players are of similar capability. Typically, you lose through mistakes you make, either massive cock ups like the one above (had the Boars hit, I am confident I'd have stomped the Skellies out of existence, allowing my unit to overrun their way out of retaliation distance!) or really stupid ones, like exposing your flank. As long as your opponent is clever enough to exploit it, you get yourself a fully deserved loss.

Luck comes into Fantasy a lot less, I find!

MDG: I'd have to disagree there- Low Ld armies are often really badly hit by the Fear causing armies out there- Daemons, Undead and Tomb kings.
This is what makes Daemons and Undead so good in tournaments, as well as the fact that causing fear makes you immune to fear.

Thankfully, low Ld armies tend to come enmasse, and a General of such an ill disciplined rabble should plan for such things. Granted, being immune to psychology really does help (mmmmm....Savage Orcs) but you tend to pay the points for that..

I mean, if I'm playing an army consisting mainly of Heavy Infantry, and I have the misfortune to fail 3 Fear tests in a single turn, then yes, I am totally stuffed most likely. But with Gobbos? Sod it, lots of other units can make it!

enmitee wrote:Fantasy, movement phase takes hours.

Build/Borrow/Buy some movement trays. Even horde armies don't take that long to move if you have some of these handy things available.

And honestly - FB doesn't have a monopoly on 'gimmicks'. I've sure seen my share of them in 40k, too, and as more codex books are updated for 5th, I think the number of 'gimmicks' will simply continue to grow. It's part of the reason most players will 'upgrade' to a new codex, especially in an edition where your previous codex is, for the most part, still perfectly viable.

Just my 2 coppers, tho.

I really don't like the term 'gimmick' as I don't think it's particularly appropriate, meaning as it does a sort of cheap stunt.

Fantasy instead, has a distinct variety to it. Some units excel in circumstances other units would struggle with. For example, lets look at the foot troops of the Undead. Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, even Grave Guard, are not the most competent of fighters. And, for their statlines, they are extremely expensive (yes, even weedy little Zombies). However, they do come with Fear, and of course, are Immune to Psychology and able to be ressurected with a little Magic. This is not a gimmick. This is the theme to the army as a whole. Unlike most races, they can rout enemy units with a combat win of the slimmest margin, due to outbreaking if outnumbered by a Fear causing enemy. This encourages the application, and subsequent maintenance, of large blocks. Now, be these at point of purchase, or the far riskier building with summoning is largely a moot point. The build of the force tends to dictate it's Magic Phase.

Same with Empire. One on one, they have some of the ostensibly weaker troops. BUT, they are extremely reasonably priced, and have the rather nifty attachment rules, which means that for 200 odd points (at least, thats what mine seem to come out as) and not a little forethought, they should win most combats before the dice are even rolled. Now, if this was a gimmick as some allege, like with the Undead and all other forces, absolutely no thought would have to be put into it.

But forthought and planning are all important in Warhammer. You need to constantly monitor the flow of the battle, and learn where and when your line is most likely to break on a turn by turn basis. Even the most sure thing of a multiple charge can be turned into a mass rout against you.

To me, 40k is more about knowing your own force, whereas Fantasy is the opposite. If I know the particulars of your armies capabilities, I'm well on my way to victory. Magic Items, Spells and other hidden nasties can buy you time, but ultimately if I can second guess your reactions, you are doomed. I honestly find there is an art in Fantasy that does not quite manifest in 40k.

Now, if you want an example of what I consider a Gimmick, let me address Warmachine. Now first of all, I have played this game and didn't particularly enjoy it. YMMV, and you have every right to disagree, but just remember this is simply my opinion. To me, Warmachine runs entirely on it's gimmick, namely the Feats each Warcaster can use once per game, the cunning application of which will pretty much secure victory. Nothing wrong with that really, I just don't like it. To my mind, it limits the potential of the game by being so dependant on them.

But in Fantasy, risks really can play dividends. Several dozen times I have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a single unpredictable action. For example, using the typically ranged only Pistoliers, with a Captain thrown in (he was there to make up points, but soon became a regular fixture) to deliver what proved to be a devastating rear charge against a unit of Dwarves, containing the BSB *and* General. I won the combat comfortably, and my opponent found the heart of his army torn out from a totally unexpected quarter. And yet an almost equal number of times, I have taken unnecessary risks which lead to my snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

And this is why to me, Fantasy is clearly the superior game. The true masters of the game are those who can consistently read the flow of battle and have a workable plan once combat is met. Sometimes, the game can slowdown to a crawl, especially in multiple unit combat (just the other day, I was fighting one involving Boarboyz, a Giant, my General on Wyvern, Cairn Wraiths with Banshee, Skeletons, 2 units of Ghouls and a Varghulf..that took some time to resolve!) but this really is the exception rather than the rule.

Overall, it is a genuinely social game. Perhaps it's the limitations on how a unit can move, or accepting that your opponent may take his time before deciding upon his plan of action, but I find it far more relaxed a game than 40k. To me, there is nothing more destressing than a leisurely game of Fantasy, with a good bottle of wine, some fine cheeses, and a few cigarettes!

MDG: I'm not entirely sure how my assault based BoC can compensate for Fear and Terror causing opponents. The basic beast herds are just massively unreliable, even when close to the general, as he has sucky leadership too.

OG have more ways around it but playing fluff based Common Orcs and Goblins it's pretty much impossible. I think this happens less often with builds in the newer 40K books- fluffy builds may not be the best, but they don't suck

Edit: I agree that fantasy is a great game to play in a relaxed xasual environment. Unfortunately my local group have gone sorta tournament minded, and while I think this produces a better game for 40K it really ruined Fantasy for me.

There are still ways and means.

Savage Orcs, for example are Frenzied. A unit of Big'uns might well be pricey, but when it comes to smashing up blocks of Undead, they are worth every point, even more so than Black Orcs.

Beasts of Chaos have the advantage of being able to surround the enemy, and having a 360 charge arc for the Herds.

Fear is not that big an issue. I have an Empire Army, and sure, it can be a pain (as it should be. Would be a pretty useless rule otherwise) so I simply ensure the multiple charges. As long as one hits home, I'm onto something.

Is a Beastlord Ld 8 or 9 these days? Been ages since I looked at my book. Even at Ld 8, you are passing the majority of tests, same with Ld7!

From memory it's Ld8.
My orcs use only basic orks and goblins. Sometimes I ally a bunch of nightgoblins because I have the minis from BFSP but my theme was for a normal orc and goblin army, which you read a lot about but rarely see on the field. It was fun, but since my group have changed not as much.

Well, that certainly sucks.

My group are into their Tournaments at the moment, but since they know I'm not that bothered by it, they ask if I fancy taking on a Tournament or Non-Tournament list.

Just ask your friends the same.

well, this forum was based on 40k, (wasn't it??)

but I think that 40k is much more streamlined, Fantasy has some elements (i.e. Block formations) that are sometimes a pain to deal with.

But I still play fantasy, and it definitely is more strategic. Unlike 40k, most units do not have 360 line of sight, so where you move counts.
There are also "general tactics" in fantasy, such as 'baiting' or 'charge redirecting' that add to the depth.

Personally, I think both are great. But 40k is just easier to play....

I play both, started with WHFB actually in the dark days of herohammer 5th (had lots of fun with actually).

I play 40K a lot more because of two reasons:

1) easier to find players
2) I can play 2-3 games on a gaming night whereas I can only get in 1 playing WHFB.

Me I am new but I picked 40k and the orks because they have a great story behind them I have read the ork codex page to page has any one else?

@baga: Nice post. Now keep posting like that, in real sentences, and we'll all get along just fine.

I get the Codecies and Army Books as they come out. Mainly for a bit of know your foe, but also because they make good reading whilst I am in the Porcelain Study straining my greens.

Of course, the downside to this is that I get random ideas for armies popping into my head, causing me to spend even moar monies.