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Ailaros wrote:If GW isn't doing in practice what you have perfected in your mind, it's because they're a bunch of lazy idiots?

A careful reader of my post would have noticed that I didn't say GW was "lazy" or "idiotic." I said that GW doesn't care. More specifically, it doesn't care if it alienates a portion of its existing customer base, since it always seems to somehow bring in more $$$ from newbies, fanboys and 9-year-old brats' rich daddies than it drives away.

Ailaros wrote: Ignoring the reality around oneself and ignoring the transmission by which desire becomes reality will give you a really bad attitude.

A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices. Now who's ignoring reality? Oh, and "the transmission by which desire becomes reality" sounds like pseudo-intellectual bloviation by a college freshman who's just enrolled in his first philosophy class.

Ailaros wrote:I'm sure if only the sheeple would wake up and elect you president, then the entire world would finally be fixed properly as well...

I couldn't have put it better

Ailaros wrote:40k is a game where you throw a vague sense of balance and a lot of rules and minis over what is fundamentally a dice game where the results are determined by chance. If GW's decision on where to draw their lines of making a game competitive is incongruous with what you desire for a competitive game, then don't play 40k. It doesn't mean that GW is making a game that is bad objectively, just bad subjectively, compared to what you want out of a game.

Replace "bad" with "good" and you have the attitude of the GW enthusiast.

Ailaros wrote:You are assuming that there is a gold standard (of which you have secret knowledge) that GW is too lazy and stupid to achieve, when in reality there is no such standard. That GW doesn't choose to make the game the way you want the game to be made doesn't mean that 40k is a bad game, or that GW is a bad company.

No, you are assuming such a standard. You are also assuming that "doesn't care" = "bad company." I am making an observation based on GW's marketing behavior. You are creating a straw man based on an imagined moral judgment.

As for 40K being a "bad game," others have commented at length on how that determination might be made. I make no such statement. Rather, my position is that 40K 6th edition in general, and as to certain specific rules in particular, is a worse game IMO relative to previous versions.

So now you're arguing that we cannot judge the success of an endeavor by whether it meets, or fails to meet, the goals set forth by its creator.

Whatever dude, we're not going to agree.

Ailaros wrote:
As Sephyr notes, it's going to be very difficult for GW to make 40k as balanced of a game as lots and lots of other alternatives out there, nor, do I think, they should. As such, if they're not going to be a properly competitive game, then it doesn't make sense for GW to compete against other games for which allows for the most competitive play. If the idea of non-competitive play really makes no sense whatsoever to you, then of course you're not going to understand what GW is doing. In this case, though, it's a failure of understanding, not a failure of GW policy.

You are misreading my point, then. It may be hard to make an extraordinarily balanced game, but it's quite easy to at least correct the worst imbalances. Recosting units that never see use takes only some math and a FAQ update. Same goes for units that lost their purpose entirely, like Genestealers, Kommandos and Mandrakes. This is the kind of thing that 2-3 game designers could set a weekend asde to hammer out the metagame, then a week more for playtesting, and then just drop the update in the next WD and/or the website.

Worse yet, GW sort of does tinker with the game, although in in a weird, chaotic way. They updated DA and BT storm shields, for instance. Then they nerfed Warptime and Lash of submission, because apparently those powers had been making CSM armies rule the metagame and gobble tournaments for the last 4 years.

TL;DR version: It can be hard to create a metagame that is mostly level across all factions in terms of capability and competitiveness. But it is really, REALLY EASY to do a better job than Games Workshop is doing currently.

By introducing a rules mechanism (points) by which two strangers can supposedly have a "fair" battle, there is some expectation that if you follow those rules, you'll have a fair battle.

Really? I'd never expect that. As with so many wargames where you build your force via a points system it is always very easy to put up a force against another force and face almost guaranteed loss, no matter how 'perfect' the points. Fair fight invloves far more than a good points system. My perfectly pointed axe wielding barbarians are almost certainly going to lose against those parthians on that open map, and probbaly almost certainly win in that heavy forest.

Within that limit though 40k does allow a fair battle between 2 strangers. I used to play a warrior heavy nid force back in 3rd edition when they were considered garbage, yet I still played plenty of good close games, and won a good number. The only place I had to play was one of the 3 nearby GW stores, so I was nearly always playing against strangers, anything from 12 year olds to 40+ year olds, tourney players and not. I may well have lost at a tourney against the good tourney players, but I didn't go to tourneys. Against random strangers, however, I was far more likely to meet someone like me who didn't create tourney winning lists, they just played with the models they liked/had. Like it or not the vast majority of players (that I've come across in the UK) simply don't do tournies.

I have a similar agument with a couple of extremely good tourney players in another game, they keep suggesting rules changes to 'fix' the game. Their 'brokeness', however, is largely down to 2 factors, 1) they are very good and understand all the tactics and tweakiness and 2) the tourney setting itself heavily favors certain styles of play. The tourney scene for that game is a very tiny subset players, and the forces they complain about being weak have a greater than 50% win rate across the tourneys so far, yet they are seen as gimped. It is indeed unlikely that force will ever win a tourney, but their win rate is pretty much bang on what you'd expect for a 'balanced' force. The point being that those who are really good will never lose to them but those who are not so hot regularly lose to them. It is not sufficient to say that '2 players of equal skill' will find X or Y balanced, you need to say what level of skill as that has a major impact on how 'balanced' armies will be. Player skill has a big impact on both making best use of yor forces and exploiting enemy weakness.

The same with 40k, just because unit X Y or Z are seen as useless does not mean they are in a game between 2 random strangers who may neither undertand that weakness well, or be able to exploit it (due to skill or simple lack of the counter units in a random matchup).

I have yet to encounter this mythical figure that you described of a person who is willing to lose forever. It's a one-on-one game. I don't care how non-competitive a person is, they're only going to take so much kicking before they try something else.

I play with him every week, one of our gaming group has been losing 99% of his games (primarily games other than 40k) for the last several years. No matter how much we try to give him advice he ignores it and does what he thinks is best, even though it nearly always loses him the game. He well understands he is the worst gamer in the group, but he is a great laugh to play with and enjoys most of what we play.

The act of participating in a one-on-one game implies some amount, however minimal, of wanting to win.

So your argument is what? That Warhammer 40,000 is perfect for people who, when they play a game, don't try to win?

There is a difference between wanting/playing to win and being bothered about actually doing so. I always play any individual game to win. But I don't concern myself that much with whether I do actualy win or not, and neither do I worry about whether my army is likely to win or lose just because of what I choose to field. Having just got back into 40k a couple of months ago I have gone for a warrior heavy nid list again (nostalgia!). I'm aware of how bad they may be, and that the serious 40k player in our group is going to kick my ass routinely.




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Redbeard wrote:
Stated Goal: two armies with the same point value will be balanced.
Obvious violation: 420 buys 7 Space Marine Predators, or 6 Chaos Space Marine Predators, with identical stats and behaviour in the game. 6 != 7, so this is not a balanced game.
.

That is a ludicrous goal. I could go to almost any other game, that I'm familar with, and come up with clearly unbalanced forces. It is easy to choose 2 forces that are not balanced.

The goal should be that it is possible to have 2 forces that are balanced on points. If you choose to come up with forces that have imbalances then so be it.

As to the preds, I'm not familar with those codices, but in the general sense there are good logical reasons why one army may pay more than another for an identical item. Army balance is not determined by the cost of individual items, but what you can take overall. A unit that covers a major weakness in 1 force may well cost different to the identical unit in another army where it provides nothing obvious over anything else they can take.

Ailaros wrote:

What I am saying is that there are players out there who are ACTUALLY not competitive (or at least are much, much less competitive). For people who are ACTUALLY not competitive, the fact that the game isn't perfectly balanced really won't matter to them. Actually.

+1

40K is a setting with a strong setting/story a setting that can be used to shape one's battles/scenarios/army design/etc.

Yes it is a miniatures game, but it also in many ways has the potential to be far more: a 3D battle rpg of sorts.

What I mean by this is that each game is potentially a cinematic "what if" that players set up and play out. Things like ambushes, last stands, desperate breakouts, etc. are all very cinematic "what ifs" that don't have to be played by equal armies nor do they need to represent toally balanced match ups.

This is the difference between "narrative play" and "competative play". For example I once played a last stand battle as the climax to a campaign in which my faction had been badly decimated over the course of the campaign weeks.

I was vastly outnumbered/out pointed but in a good defensive position. Even though I had little chance for true victory in the normal 40k compeative sense, the battle served the narrative in the context of the campaign we had forged and so it deserved to be played as a way to finish the campaign's story arc and reward those that had fought so hard to defeat my faction and claim campaign victory. A movie or novel doesnt just end because one side decides they can't win or the war is unfar. Players should commit to playing their parts to the end regardless of if this means being the victor or the defeated. Players who commit and carry through with creating a complete narrative experience that focuses on telling the story not their win/loss tallies will be rewarded with some great gaming experiences.

For me the battle was a chance ot see how long I could hold out, how many enemy characters I could take with me to hell, how many bragging rights I could earn by refusing to go easy into t the dark night, etc. My heros suffered tragic deaths, but died forging legends of themselves (at least in our minds )

The game was stacked. The outcome pretty much certain, but it was still one hell of a game and one I fondly remember to this day. It had narrative, cool themed terrain and represented a classic scene (last stand)played out on our table top.

I remember a guy watching us setting up the game who was totally perplexed by our game. He couldnt fathom why I would play a game I had no chance of winning, why waste my time? He was almost angry that anyone would want to play me when they had such an advantage. He stated he would just quit and get a "real game" in instead...

Some people just don't understand the potential for what 40K can be beyond simply a competative entity. They are missing out on a whole other layer of wargaming imho.

Again, it comes own to finding people that share your vision, have similar mentalities when it comes to competition, and who appreciate the game on the same level you do...


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LordOfTheSloths wrote:

A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices.

Care to offer proof of this? Verified data perhaps? Curious...

puree wrote:

As to the preds, I'm not familar with those codices, but in the general sense there are good logical reasons why one army may pay more than another for an identical item. Army balance is not determined by the cost of individual items, but what you can take overall. A unit that covers a major weakness in 1 force may well cost different to the identical unit in another army where it provides nothing obvious over anything else they can take.

Emm, no. Very much not. There is a reason why Space Wolves pick Long Fangs by the bucket and vanilla SMs avoid them like the plague: It's because they fulfill the same role, in the same slot, and one of them is both cheaper and better. Now, if you can explain to me what is the fundamental weakness of the SW codex that needs to be addressed by giving them a cheaper, better unit, we may get somewhere.

But "Umm, there must be a good, logical reason why some expensive models suck and some cheap models rule" is a statement that border on insanity if you don't offer that rationale in the following sentence.

Example: Dark Eldar pay less points for power weapons than Space Marine sergeants/chaos champions. However, they have lower Strength and Toughness, as well as less durability, meaning said power weapon will not wound as much and not be around as long. Therefore, lower point cost.

Ailaros wrote:

It is possible to make a game that is fun and perfectly balanced, and it's possible to make a game that is fun an hideously unbalanced (like Volga Bulgars or Axis and Allie).

If, in order to be fun for you, a game has to be balanced, that has much more to say about you than about games in general.

+!

RxGhost wrote:I hope GW continues to ignore what has been the model of 'competitive play', it is weak, unoriginal and boring; it deserves no better.

You got it backwards, it's GW who created the model with lack of balance. Still, although I don't attend "competitive play" as you understand it, I don't find the idea weak, unoriginal and boring.

Sephyr wrote:Anecdotal experience here, but over the last 6-7 months three starting players to my group (of around 10-14 people that actually do show up and play) have given up entirely because of balance issues. A Tau player got disheartened at how bad his army performed at anything other than cracking AV14 and being shot off the board by IG and Necrons, A Nid player got bored of almost every game having his pionstakingly-painted MCs missile's and lascannoned away by turn 2, and the daemon player pretty much ragequit after some games with his also-starting friend who plays GK.

In all cases they spent months buying and painting the armies (Hell, the Nid player actually did a much sweeter job of painting his first army in the hobby than I can do now after a lot of practice!) and were just beggining to try them on the board. For some it took 5 games for them to see that their forces were not doing what they wanted and in some cases not doing much at all.

Now mind, in many cases they had veterans watching the games and offering advice. The fact is, there was often not much they could have done different. and in some cases it really was newbie vs. newbie and one was getting flattened 6 out of 6 times. I can't blame them for not being happy with "Maybe the new codex/edition will fix it" as an excuse to keep playing. Can you?

To purposefully leave that state of affairs unchanged just boggles my mind, especially in the age of Twitter and iPads, as well as competition from video games and MMOs where consumer feedback can mean a patch or fix within weeks or even days.

I admit it's possible to have fun in an unbalanced game. What will usually happen is that people will gravitate to the strongest faction/build and create a lot of wasted products (as seen by so many local clubs here that are basically 80% Marines slapping marines, someone's randon xenos army that is more a painting project than a gaming one, and someone's second army of Necrons or orks). If your vision of a fun 40K future os Blood Angels facing Space Wolves forever across every board, I guess that's fun. Chess has had the same army builds for ages, after all, but at leaste there aren't a grey and a red set of pieces that no one uses because they're crap.

I'd say that a reasonably balanced setting makes it possible for more people to have more fun over more time, though.

I'm in total agreement with your post but have a question about the underlined part, were the terrain applied by the book?. Kind of helps Nids...

Ailaros wrote:

5th edition was geared to allow more competitive players to play in a more competitive environment. It looks like GW thinks that this was a mistake with the direction they've been moving in as of late. They are re-writing things, on purpose, to drive competitive players out of the game, and return its fan base towards non-competitive gamers.

And this is all because they started with false assumption, judging from claims like "Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He (Jervis or Kelly, not sure) thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function" which implies that competitive has to be simplified, flat and generic in it's function. In my opinion no, simplyfying is just the easier way to do it and not simplified + competitive and balanced mean just more work. I see a possibility that the latter is what GW tries to avoid, out of fear of failure or laziness or carelesness or sth different maybe.

Ailaros wrote:
If you don't like the idea of losing a game because of unlucky rolling of dice, then you really need to stop playing 40k. 40k is a dice game, not a serious strategy game. If you don't like the random, then go play some game that doesn't have randomness.

How many games are deicided by unlucky roll? 1 of 100? 1 of 1000? As a rare occurence this is acceptable, just like in sport some 4 class lower team beats the stars team from time to time. But if the new edition is released and the chance for a game decided by an unlucky roll gets bigger, this is wrong direction. The serious strategy game is the right direction, if you're right and this is not it (and I think it is despite the many shortcomings) then they should change it. I'm casual, I play for fun which equals stretching my brain a bit over beer and pretzels, if there's no stretching I can have beer and pretzels but switch a game for, let's say, rpg session with miniatures? Just discussion? Women company? That's "fun" too and the cost is 1/100.

Love chess for example but having an open board, various armies looking great and risk managment type of gameplay is great as well, or even better, as long as it's not a senseless dicefest.







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CT GAMER wrote:40K is a setting with a strong setting/story a setting that can be used to shape one's battles/scenarios/army design/etc.

Yes it is a miniatures game, but it also in many ways has the potential to be far more: a 3D battle rpg of sorts.

What I mean by this is that each game is potentially a cinematic "what if" that players set up and play out. Things like ambushes, last stands, desperate breakouts, etc. are all very cinematic "what ifs" that don't have to be played by equal armies nor do they need to represent toally balanced match ups.

This is the difference between "narrative play" and "competative play". For example I once played a last stand battle as the climax to a campaign in which my faction had been badly decimated over the course of the campaign weeks.

I was vastly outnumbered/out pointed but in a good defensive position. Even though I had little chance for true victory in the normal 40k compeative sense, the battle served the narrative in the context of the campaign we had forged and so it deserved to be played as a way to finish the campaign's story arc and reward those that had fought so hard to defeat my faction and claim campaign victory. A movie or novel doesnt just end because one side decides they can't win or the war is unfar. Players should commit to playing their parts to the end regardless of if this means being the victor or the defeated. Players who commit and carry through with creating a complete narrative experience that focuses on telling the story not their win/loss tallies will be rewarded with some great gaming experiences.

For me the battle was a chance ot see how long I could hold out, how many enemy characters I could take with me to hell, how many bragging rights I could earn by refusing to go easy into t the dark night, etc. My heros suffered tragic deaths, but died forging legends of themselves (at least in our minds )

The game was stacked. The outcome pretty much certain, but it was still one hell of a game and one I fondly remember to this day. It had narrative, cool themed terrain and represented a classic scene (last stand)played out on our table top.

I remember a guy watching us setting up the game who was totally perplexed by our game. He couldnt fathom why I would play a game I had no chance of winning, why waste my time? He was almost angry that anyone would want to play me when they had such an advantage. He stated he would just quit and get a "real game" in instead...

Some people just don't understand the potential for what 40K can be beyond simply a competative entity. They are missing out on a whole other layer of wargaming imho.

Again, it comes own to finding people that share your vision, have similar mentalities when it comes to competition, and who appreciate the game on the same level you do...

I'm confused. I would enjoy a game you describe but that doesn't change the fact I want a balanced competitive core ruleset, for the sake of the other games, to know if I really had no chance, because that's what company designing a game and cashing on it should do etc. You could still play your games with the ruleset I describe, I can't play competitive games with the unbalanced ruleset that for your games is fine. Not to mention, this is a wargame at least was last time I checked, not an rpg.

Plumbumbarum wrote:[this is a wargame at least was last time I checked, not an rpg.

Semantics.

We control representations of people with various stats/skills/abilities battling in a detailed fictional setting and use dice to resolve actions. The models are built and painted to represent specific things within that setting.

How is this any different than an rpg?

Otherwise why do we need any fluff at all? We could have generic human space warrior squd A vs. close combat alien squad C.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

I'm in total agreement with your post but have a question about the underlined part, were the terrain applied by the book?. Kind of helps Nids...

Yes, we usually play with rather dense terrain (ruins/statues). The very first time, he actually deployed poorly, but after that he was very careful to hide his MCs.

The thing is, most players know how to have good fire lanes for at least some of the troops. You may be hidden from the Predator on the left, but the Long Fangs on the right can see you. And if you hide your beasts too much, you usually either leave your troops out of synpase or waste your heavy hitters hiding in the back.

CT GAMER wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:[this is a wargame at least was last time I checked, not an rpg.

Semantics.

We control representations of people with various stats/skills/abilities battling in a detailed fictional setting and use dice to resolve actions. The models are built and painted to represent specific things within that setting.

How is this any different than an rpg?

Otherwise why do we need any fluff at all? We could have generic human space warrior squd A vs. close combat alien squad C.

I can make a ruleset for an rpg just judging odds in my mind, it does not have to be balanced that much as it's really about the story there. The ammount of system needed there is only to assure that I didn't resolve someone jumping over the hole with out of my ass decision, and more complex systems are for game masters that have trouble being just. It's the game of imagination and there's no really a winner or competition (if so, rarely and still not that much about a win) just a story.

Wargame has a board, two player and only one can win, objectives, armies, unit organisation etc. World of difference.

Fluff is to give you a mood for the battle, not to write books during a game, you can if you want but that's not a point. Btw a good balanced tactical oriented ruleset would help your story based 40k games (so war stories) making more sense, or maybe you like chaos warriors sacrificing themselves for their Sir! or other ridiculousness.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Fluff is to give you a mood for the battle, not to write books during a game, you can if you want but that's not a point.

Gw seems to be implying otherwise this edition...

Sephyr wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

I'm in total agreement with your post but have a question about the underlined part, were the terrain applied by the book?. Kind of helps Nids...

Yes, we usually play with rather dense terrain (ruins/statues). The very first time, he actually deployed poorly, but after that he was very careful to hide his MCs.

The thing is, most players know how to have good fire lanes for at least some of the troops. You may be hidden from the Predator on the left, but the Long Fangs on the right can see you. And if you hide your beasts too much, you usually either leave your troops out of synpase or waste your heavy hitters hiding in the back.

We use 2 large los blocking terrain pieces + walls and 2 small forests (still not over 25%) and that really helps nids but yes, they are hard to play and of course unbalanced.


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CT GAMER wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Fluff is to give you a mood for the battle, not to write books during a game, you can if you want but that's not a point.

Gw seems to be implying otherwise this edition...

It's a mixed bag imo, like few people with different ideas designing it, or trying to cover all bases with narrative excuse to work less in the future. Some changes really improve the wargame part imo like early less random reserves, mc boost, glancing vehicles. They added some cheap cinematics but the core game is still a wargame, just compare the place taken by forging the narrative boxes vs rules.

But if you're right, it should be obvious that people drawn to it because of wargame direction of 5th give negative feedback, and it's kind of lame from GW to do such thing. Make two games, or competitive ruleset with optional narrative rules, or sth.

5th to be fair had several issues. The core rules were designed one way with one design mentality (awkwardly attempting to "streamline" the game while making it more complex in others) in mind by Alessio, and then immediately the first codex book written by a different author (primarily Ward) went another, very different way, with all sorts of exceptions to core rules for huge numbers of units and gimmick abilities and continued to do so with his other books, with two other authors writing prominent books that didn't fit either of these design philosophies.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:
A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices. Now who's ignoring reality?

I began 40k in early 5th edition and very first messages I read on 40k board were veterans complaining how 5th edition was worst iteration of the game yet, and how their armies had been ruined and they were quitting the game. Funny how it goes.

Yes 5th was a mediocore ruleset with a lot of ridiculousness but 6th seems equaly mediocore with a lots of ridiculousness at best, and to add insult to the injury they start with claim that they are not making it competitive for drama tension and craziness plus all the random tables and I have already read about some big random table in CSM codex. 6th might even turn out slightly better after seeing the codieces etc but imo still won't live up to fluff, models and ofc price.

CT GAMER wrote:
For me the battle was a chance ot see how long I could hold out, how many enemy characters I could take with me to hell, how many bragging rights I could earn by refusing to go easy into t the dark night, etc. My heros suffered tragic deaths, but died forging legends of themselves (at least in our minds )

I'm with this guy.

Winning is great, but having fun in the process is more important. Whenever it becomes clear that I'm not going to win, I usually come up with an entirely new objective. Like seeing how many Firewarriors my Primus Psyker can take down in close combat, or taking my revenge on Straken, etc.



Personally I've enjoyed 6th Ed immensely, significantly more then 5th. The new scenarios, secondary objectives, Warlords, challenge rules and everything else makes for a much more narrative and engaging game.

In 5th ed most games felt 2 dimensional. I'm taking these objectives, because that's how you win.

In 6th, when you play a game like The Big Guns Never Tire, it felt like the game had more substance and meaning. Just the small snippets of fluff about both sides making a push into no mans land, and suddenly, the objectives weren't just counters on the field they were strategically important locations for gun emplacements.

I've also enjoyed the game because of the increase in randomness, at first it seems weird, but it means that every once in a while you come across an epic event that shouldn't have happened statistically speaking, or couldn't have happened at all in 5th.

For Example:

In a game facing Nids I had a halve strength squad of Vets charge a Hive Tyrant. The Tryants overwatch killed one of the squad, but they made it into combat. The Sargent, challenged the Hive Tyrant and was quickly reduced to a fine red mist, but the squad stuck. The Tyrant wiffed in the next phase and only killed 2 guardsmen, and they stuck around for another turn.

In 5th, the squad would have charged and done nothing, in 6th, the charged valiantly and stood there ground against a towering alien monstrosity, buying their comrades a few precious minutes to get to safety with their lives.


In another game against Tau, I had a Primus Psyker charge a squad of Firewarriors by himself. I needed to role a 10, to get into combat, but I had to risk it. The Tau had just wrecked all my chimera's and Vets were out in the open, just waiting to get gunned down. The Primus took a wound from overwatch. We were both visibly tense as I rolled for charge distance. It was almost like a scene from a movie as the first die landed revealing a 4, while the other kept spinning for just a fraction of a second more before revealing a 6, exactly what I needed to make it into combat. The Primus killed a few tau and locked. In 5th, a 10 inch charge isn't even possible, but in 6th, a Primus Psyker was able to charge heroically into a squad of xenos, taking heavy fire only to slam into the squad and distract them long enough for his men to make it out of danger.



Maybe I've just had good experiences so far, but I've been having so much fun with 6th, it makes me wonder why I bothered with 5th at all.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

For Example:

In a game facing Nids I had a halve strength squad of Vets charge a Hive Tyrant. The Tryants overwatch killed one of the squad, but they made it into combat. The Sargent, challenged the Hive Tyrant and was quickly reduced to a fine red mist, but the squad stuck. The Tyrant wiffed in the next phase and only killed 2 guardsmen, and they stuck around for another turn.

In 5th, the squad would have charged and done nothing, in 6th, the charged valiantly and stood there ground against a towering alien monstrosity, buying their comrades a few precious minutes to get to safety with their lives.

Where's fluff in that, Hive Tyrant is not that stupit and honorable would just kill all of them. If the challenge is drawing Tyrant attention through throwing rocks, again not that stupid. Could happen in 5th assuming the Tyrant would roll a lot of 1s just would be very rare as it should, not forced by some cinematic rule. Anyway sounds like a bad hollywoodish story fluff - wise, good grimdark story imo would be Hive Tyrant viciously shredding them to pieces maybe them buying a little (1 turn) time with the sacrifice, not being at all important in the end.

Throwing 3 squads for certain death just to stop a Tyrant for 3 turns is more what I connote with 40k

Sephyr wrote:

puree wrote:

As to the preds, I'm not familar with those codices, but in the general sense there are good logical reasons why one army may pay more than another for an identical item. Army balance is not determined by the cost of individual items, but what you can take overall. A unit that covers a major weakness in 1 force may well cost different to the identical unit in another army where it provides nothing obvious over anything else they can take.

Emm, no. Very much not. There is a reason why Space Wolves pick Long Fangs by the bucket and vanilla SMs avoid them like the plague: It's because they fulfill the same role, in the same slot, and one of them is both cheaper and better. Now, if you can explain to me what is the fundamental weakness of the SW codex that needs to be addressed by giving them a cheaper, better unit, we may get somewhere.

But "Umm, there must be a good, logical reason why some expensive models suck and some cheap models rule" is a statement that border on insanity if you don't offer that rationale in the following sentence.

Emm, yes, very much so.

I was not discussing any specific example (as I noted I don't know the codices mentioned), but the general point that just becuase an army can take a pred at X pts and another can take the identical pred at X - ??pts does not mean that the armies are not balanced which is what the other poster was saying. Based on the argument being made in the earlier post it is the army as a whole that should be reasonably balanced. The usefulness and hence value of a pred in army A may very well be a lot different to that in army B.

To best of my knowledge vanilla SM don't even get the choice of Long fangs, though (correct me if I'm wrong) unlike vanilla SM the wolves cannot have heavy weapons in their tactical squad equivalents. You may disagree with the specifc points values (again I can't comment on the specific point), but that is exactly what I'm talking about, because 1 army can have heavy weapons in a variety of squads and another cannot then the relative value of the heavy weapon in the heavy support squad is likely different within each army.

puree wrote:

I was not discussing any specific example (as I noted I don't know the codices mentioned), but the general point that just becuase an army can take a pred at X pts and another can take the identical pred at X - ??pts does not mean that the armies are not balanced which is what the other poster was saying. Based on the argument being made in the earlier post it is the army as a whole that should be reasonably balanced. The usefulness and hence value of a pred in army A may very well be a lot different to that in army B.

That's not really the way they did it though, it's basically "2000-2006" they cost X, 2007 they cost Y, 2008+ they cost Z. There's nothing about balance between these armies, merely design philosophy changes between different authors.

To best of my knowledge vanilla SM don't even get the choice of Long fangs, though (correct me if I'm wrong)

They have Devastators, they cost more even at min size, can't take as many heavy weapons, and cannot split fire unless 10 strong and cost twice as much as a kitted Long Fang unit with more guns.

unlike vanilla SM the wolves cannot have heavy weapons in their tactical squad equivalents.

A non-issue, nobody would take them even if they could on Grey Hunter squads, and most SM players would bend over backwards to take Grey Hunters instead of Tac's, hence the mass evacuation to the SW codex and the torrent of "counts-as" SW armies of the past few years.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Anyway sounds like a bad hollywoodish story fluff - wise, good grimdark story imo would be Hive Tyrant viciously shredding them to pieces maybe them buying a little (1 turn) time with the sacrifice, not being at all important in the end.

But the bad/unlikely/improbably stuff is the reason I play 40k.

If I wanted realism, I wouldn't play a game with space demons, space wizards, and space orcs.

I play 40k, because I want to enjoy ridiculous over the top improbable heroism.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Anyway sounds like a bad hollywoodish story fluff - wise, good grimdark story imo would be Hive Tyrant viciously shredding them to pieces maybe them buying a little (1 turn) time with the sacrifice, not being at all important in the end.

But the bad/unlikely/improbably stuff is the reason I play 40k.

Fine that was only my opinion.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:If I wanted realism, I wouldn't play a game with space demons, space wizards, and space orcs.

It's not about realism but making sense fluff wise and fitting the mood. Like no rainbow unicorns and no Hive Tyrants taking challenges for whatever reason. Throwing rocks at a Carnifex to challenge it could obviously work but that's on the other hand impossible rules wise. Challenge rule is neither good for narrative nor balance/ competitivness imo.

btw I had a few fights Calgar vs Hive Tyrant for example in 5th both ranged and cc not forced by the rule but came out from situation on the board. Rarer but so much better imo

Thatguyoverthere wrote:I play 40k, because I want to enjoy ridiculous over the top improbable heroism.

I like to see improbable heroism worth nothing and heroes chewed to gelatin, probably comes from my army choice though

LordOfTheSloths wrote:A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices.

Citation needed.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:my position is that 40K 6th edition in general, and as to certain specific rules in particular, is a worse game IMO relative to previous versions.

What rules, and why?

Sephyr wrote:You are misreading my point, then. It may be hard to make an extraordinarily balanced game, but it's quite easy to at least correct the worst imbalances. Recosting units that never see use takes only some math and a FAQ update.

You're approaching this from the wrong end though. GW promotes tailored lists, and in that environment many units that never see use, are suddenly useful.

Plumbumbarum wrote:no Hive Tyrants taking challenges for whatever reason.

Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:no Hive Tyrants taking challenges for whatever reason.

Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

Well, there is that whole fluff thing about Hive Tyrants giving about as many gaks as a honey badger.

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

I always saw it as the relevant Sargent nodding to his men and saying, "Don't worry boys, I got this one." before being chopped to bits.


Maybe in the next Nid dex, tryanid ICs will get the ability to turn down, challenges. Until then it makes a little sense, since creatures like the Deathleaper were designed specifically to terrorize and kill enemy leaders.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Honestly, I feel it will be sorted out in the eventual codex, where tyranids will have something similar to skaven where they can issue, but they can decline challenges without taking penalties.

As such, since GW has its current policy, we are forced to deal with weird things until GW gets around to writing a codex for a specific army.

Fafnir wrote:Well, there is that whole fluff thing about Hive Tyrants giving about as many gaks as a honey badger.

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Because it wants to take out the enemy leadership elements? Because the only person stepping up to fight it is the brave and noble character? Because the enemy character shot it in the face to get it's attention and it worked?

If Ripley can challenge an Alien Queen, and Dr Alan Grant can challenge a Tyrannosaurus Rex, I see nothing wrong with anyone challenging a hive tyrant.

If you're worried that having it cower in shame for refusing the challenge is unfluffy, then just use your imagination. Imagine the creature is stomping around in frustration while everyone else does their best to avoid/distract it.

Kaldor wrote:

Because it wants to take out the enemy leadership elements? Because the only person stepping up to fight it is the brave and noble character? Because the enemy character shot it in the face to get it's attention and it worked?

In which case it's likely got tons of minions that will also fight with it.

If Ripley can challenge an Alien Queen, and Dr Alan Grant can challenge a Tyrannosaurus Rex, I see nothing wrong with anyone challenging a hive tyrant.

Ripley only fought the Queen after she escaped with no drones (and thus, nothing else to join in the fight) and Ripley was very clearly the only thing around that wasn't either torn in half already, a small inanimate child fleeing/hiding in terror, or an inanimate object, and thus, was the only thing *to* fight. I don't recall Jurassic park since I haven't seen it since I was a wee lad in the early 90's sadly, but a T-Rex is a relatively dumb, largely solitary beast (akin to a Carnifex), not a cunning hive commander with psychic control of untold numbers of minions.

If you're worried that having it cower in shame for refusing the challenge is unfluffy, then just use your imagination. Imagine the creature is stomping around in frustration while everyone else does their best to avoid/distract it.

My issue is that a Hive Tyrant would fight something one on one without the aid of its minions. A challenge is a duel between two opponents without interference, I just cannot see a Hive Tyrant engaging in such a combat.

Vaktathi wrote:I just cannot see a Hive Tyrant engaging in such a combat.

But, it's minions are busy fighting the rest of the opponents squad?

Or in the case of a lone opponent, the enemy character manages to simply stay out of reach of the Hive Tyrants minions. The Tyrants minions will give it re-rolls, which you can rationalise as them attempting to attack the hero while he attempts to keep the Tyrant between himself and the rest of the minions.

It's a cinematic effect, like how in the movies goons run in to be beaten up by the hero one by one. I see no problem with it.