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Wow, some excellent discussion here!

@Shep

Funny you bring up those points as I just wrote an article covering a lot of the exact some material.

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/08/01/the-manly-art-of-fisticuffs-in-the-41st-millennium/

I agree though, that there are ways around all of this. Labmouse just pointed out to me in a PM that he used Pavane to get around tanking characters, which is true, and an awesome counter tactic. There are lots of these if you look for them, like, as you said, with precision strikes, etc. Tar-pit units are another excellent way to pull this off.

Swarmlord in my Nid list has proven to be the anit-Deathstar by himself. If he get's Iron Arm, he will walk through a lot of these crazy units solo. There are answers there, it is just not something an "average" list will be able to deal with.

Again, we aren't saying this stuff is broken, but as Jy2 pointed out, not fun to those not ready for it. I guarantee at the Golden Throne this weekend when we bring the heavy lists we're bringing, people are going to be disheartened. That stinks. But, as others pointed out, it is an arms race, and you will either be the steam roller, or the road.

@Moosatronic warrior

I think you are right, and that a lot of this discussion will largely be academic as the average gamer doesn't give a hoot about going to a tournament and competing at the highest level, he or she just wants to roll some dice and have a good laugh.

So long as they don't use this kind of stuff, there won't be an issue and the rules run really smoothly.

@Darkness Eternal

No hard feeling on my end man, just wanted you to know that. I like it when people challenge my ideas because they often see things I missed. I just prefer it when a conversation is civil, even if we're disagreeing.

He issued a challenge with dante which I decided to take with the shadowseer, because, thanks to hammer of wrath and misfortune, one of my shadow fields shorted out.

this shouldn't have been a problem unless it happened during a different player turn. Challenges are made in the fight sub-phase and blows are struck at inititative steps during the fighting phase (Hammer of Wrath being Init10 for posterities sake). Not sure what this changes as far as game strategy and what tanks what since he ultimately rolled 1,1, but he could have accepted Dante and then failed miserably to him by failing those impact hits.

i would add that misfortune is absolutely sick vs. the harliestar. hallucinate is a close second. Invisiblility is a nice counter to tank a harliestar (until they H&R from you). Enfeeble is a nice tool to really make failing those shadowfields a horrible price.

I think those are 3 very good reasons to pick Eldrad and give up the Fateseer (fortune). You get 50% (16% more) psychic defence vs. most of the field's psykers as well as tossing Doom out on multiple foes for 100pts more. I honestly don't use him at 1500pts in my Harliestar but he's in my 1850pts (current tournament norm).

Reecius,

Your battle reports and expert analysis has confirmed what I didn't want to accept; Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition is a terrible, screwed up mess of a game.

The fact that you can have 1 character take all of the wounds in a close combat, is beyond stupid. Combine that with Overwatch (which is broken), random charge
distances, and lots of other little things I despise (AP3 Power Weapons, lame transport rules, broken allies, + lots of other stuff) leaves me with a game that I have no
desire to play. It is terrible miniature wargaming ruleset, it's only saving grace is that it has nice models. The game is borderline unplayable in any type of even semi-compeitive
format. It is simply a matter of which player has figured out the cheesiest combos from the existing pool of codexes. Player skill will account for about 10% of a given game.

And that makes me sad. It could have been so much more, but as it stands, is about as fun as making up rules to play legos with my kids.

I am going to stick with 5th edition for my games, and also look at some alternate rulesets to use my figs with like Stargrunt II. I just refuse to participate in this disaster & cash
grab that GW has unleashed.

I know that this is your livelyhood and you have to "play the GW game" to keep food on your table. I can appreciate that.

For me personally, as an old school Grognard that loves a balanced, tactical wargame between 2 generals; this is about the furthest thing from what I wan't to play.

Darklight wrote:Reecius,

Your battle reports and expert analysis has confirmed what I didn't want to accept; Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition is a terrible, screwed up mess of a game.

The fact that you can have 1 character take all of the wounds in a close combat, is beyond stupid. Combine that with Overwatch (which is broken), random charge
distances, and lots of other little things I despise (AP3 Power Weapons, lame transport rules, broken allies, + lots of other stuff) leaves me with a game that I have no
desire to play. It is terrible miniature wargaming ruleset, it's only saving grace is that it has nice models. The game is borderline unplayable in any type of even semi-compeitive
format. It is simply a matter of which player has figured out the cheesiest combos from the existing pool of codexes. Player skill will account for about 10% of a given game.

And that makes me sad. It could have been so much more, but as it stands, is about as fun as making up rules to play legos with my kids.

I am going to stick with 5th edition for my games, and also look at some alternate rulesets to use my figs with like Stargrunt II. I just refuse to participate in this disaster & cash
grab that GW has unleashed.

I know that this is your livelyhood and you have to "play the GW game" to keep food on your table. I can appreciate that.

For me personally, as an old school Grognard that loves a balanced, tactical wargame between 2 generals; this is about the furthest thing from what I wan't to play.

While I'm personally in agreement with some of your sentiments here, I think it is actually highly inaccurate to say that 6th edition isn't balanced or tactical.

I'd actually go ahead and say that it is MORE tactical and MORE balanced than 5th edition...just not in the way that some of us would care to like.

The game is now super tactical in that model placement within unit is absolutely key, so taking advantage of that fact (and protecting your own models) takes massive amounts of skill and focus and the player who does that better will likely win the game.

As for balance, with allies opening things up so wide, there are more tools than ever to make any army competitive by including strong elements from other codexes. It really will come down to players finding the best combinations to work for their play style and plans.

Therefore, 6th edition is actually more balanced, is more tactical, is highly competitive, etc.


However, if you're someone who liked more of the simulation aspect of tabletop warfare in a fictional fantasy/sci-fi world, then 6th edition kind of does fall on its face. The balanced of the game is achieved often through frankenstein combinations of special characters. The tactics revolve around gameplay that doesn't relaly match-up to real world analogies, like single characters taking all of the enemy firepower or barrage weapons doing your sniping, etc.


I don't necessarilly see this as a huge flaw overall, because I think a lot of really competitive players have no problems with dismissing any and all fluff considerations in order to get into exciting list building and gameplay...so for them its not so much about how ridculous it is that every army has Eldrad as it is exciting to see what combinations opposing players are utilizing and how they can combat it...kind of like Warmachine and how you pick different casters and combo them with units to get a unique type of army. That's kind of been infused into 40K now, but through combining abilities from other codexes. And for competitive players, the fact that every model movement is now hugely important does mean that player skill will really be a deciding factor in games, despite all the random elements that are now part of the game.

And on the flip-side, fluffy players who want to just use the ally rules to play thematic ally armies can now do so, and if their gaming group is all on the same page it seems like it would work for them too.

The only real problem will come from players who want the strict theme and want to have a super-competitive army...I don't think those two concepts can mesh much at all anymore (if they ever did).

@ jy2. I understand your point, and accept it. But this isn't a 40k thing, or even a GW thing...

lemme explain.

In the other game, you know the one that everyone touts as being super balanced and tuned for tournament play, if I played my stormwall phaley list, and you decided that you wnted to play a fluffy assault kommando theme force with kossite woodsmen, guess what happens, I cast temporal barrier, essentially disallowing your army to function, I table you, you call the game unbalanced and you quit.

My point on this is that every single tabletop game you EVER buy will have this delta between people playing competitively, and people with little to no idea what they are doing. And frankly, I like it that way. More than half of my gaming group has dialed their interest level down to "casual" and I intend to play many a casual game, with no wound allocation abuse and no spamming of any kind. But a game needs to have room for players who can read rules, read forusm, and playtest ideas to have an advantage over a guy who plays with the models he thinks are cool and doens't bother to put any effort into his competitiveness.

I can dial my game down quite a bit and make even a first time player have a great game, but I also enjoy playing disgusting rules intensive competitive battles with my tourney pals.

On the whole time issue, yeah 40k takes along time, the prime #1reason i don't see it as a tourney game. It doesn't really matter that wound allocation is time consuming to me, because I can play literally 3-4 35 point warmachine games in the time it takes to play one 1850 40k game.

And to the people who mentioned the mistakes in my example...

Misfortune does indeed affect inculnerable saves...

And yeah, the challenge should have been issued before hammer of wrath's were allocated, I realized that as i was posting the write-up. I still lose that combat easily.

And doom is ok, but remember a deathstar with a librarian in it can deny the witch on a 5+, so while it does "help" as would Vect giving me preferred enemy and fearless, it adds to cost, and every time your deathstar deploys against MSU, that cost very quickly leads to bloat.

Shep,

I can't comment on your specific Warmachine example, cause I don't play that game, but what I can say about the issue I have with 6th edition is that the really strong imbalances don't come from because of overall style choices, but rather from specific combinations paired together in ways that are not readily evident within the core rules of the game.

So yeah, in 5th edition for example one player could show up with an all mechanized army and his opponent could show up with absolutely no Anti-tank weaponry and have literally no chance. But within the fictional confines of the world and the game rules, the reasoning behind that was obvious...one player didn't take enough anti-tank weaponry and his opponent had all armor. I think everyone would agree this makes sense, but from a 'real' (using the term 'real' here only to illustrate internally consistent within the given fictional universe) perspective of what we would expect from that macth-up.

However, in 6th edition, a player can take literally his entire army as dedicated anti-infantry weapons, but if his opponent has a nasty combo up his sleeve and has created a deathstar with 2+ re-rollable saves taking every single wound on its most powerful unit then all of a sudden not only does one player not have any chance (just as in the previous example), but the reasoning no longer makes any sense...the guy alreay has anti-infantry units, but its not about units anymore its about combinations of special rules WITHIN each unit and how those models are arranged, etc.

But not only does the player not have a chance and the reason for him not having a chance being non-sensical, but also the PROCESS of resolving that ridiculous situation is now more tedious (and therefore unfun) than ever. I know from experience watching all of your firepower being spread throuhout a Paladin squad so as not to cause a casualty was rather depressing as the player trying to kill them. But in 6th edition, watching someone roll 20-30-40+ saves at 2+ and getting a re-roll ONE AT A TIME is just mind-numbingly terrible. Its almost like having to watch something incredibly grueseome in slow-motion over and over again.

So maybe if GW's literature showed off tacticas explaining how you should have a Fortuned Kandras leading a unit to take all the enemy AP3 and greater firepower, or how you should combo the Baron into a Harlequin unit to get 2+ cover saves, etc, then it would be a different story and more players would be on the same page. But we all know GW isn't ever going to do that, because they don't tend to highlight the things they don't like to see. And while I would like to think that in general players learn to expect nastiness and are prepared ahead of time coming into a tournament, my experiences have proved otherwise. Time and time again you see players either completely unaware of what nastiness exists because they don't troll the internet regularly or they have their own internall 'cheese' standard which is a line they won't personally cross and they wish everyone else wouldn't as well.

Not only will these players get crushed like they would in 5th edition tournaments, but they will also tend to have horrifically unfun games as they discover the joy of 2+ re-rollable saves and will complain bitterly to everyone about how the game is broken, etc. Now you and I can both understand that the game isn't 'broken' in that there are plenty of ways to counter anything, but I don't think those types of players are going to buy it and that could result in an overall reduction in tournament player counts which could impact the ability of tournaments to keep growing.


In addition, for someone like me who has always liked the squad-based nature of 40K since 3rd edition, the new tactics in 6th edition completely shatter this concept, as the game is now no longer about manuevering squads into proper position to crush the right enemy squads, but now it is about what little manuevers and tricks you can within a squad to either gain a massive advantage for yourself or deny such an advantage to your opponent.

So while I can understand and utilize things like barrage sniping, or tanking with combo special-characters, etc, these things don't make consistent internal sense to me within the game universe anymore. I don't understand why the rules no longer represent that another model can simply pick up a fallen plasma gun anymore, etc.

Yeah, I can play the game, utilize the combos and pull of the tricks, but none of it works in my head anymore as cinema, because I cannot reconcile the complete implausibility of a single guy at the front of the unit magically able to suck all the bullets into him.

No allies and no special characters. Is the problem solved?

Yes, of you want to not play 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And dear lord would that break some armies while not stopping others.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sob for example would suffer hard without their special characters because all of their normal hqs are so bad.

@Darklight

Well, I am sorry to hear that. Honestly that last thing I want to do is discourage people from playing the game. Our goal has been to educate people as to what is coming, and how to prepare for it.

I honestly am enjoying playing 6th, no bs there. I would just change a few key rules if I could.

My hope is that over time with FAQ's, and new Codices, some of this stuff will be mitigated.

Reecius wrote:@Darklight

Well, I am sorry to hear that. Honestly that last thing I want to do is discourage people from playing the game. Our goal has been to educate people as to what is coming, and how to prepare for it.

I honestly am enjoying playing 6th, no bs there. I would just change a few key rules if I could.

My hope is that over time with FAQ's, and new Codices, some of this stuff will be mitigated.

Thanks Reecius. I might have over reacted a bit, and I do admit the game is fun - to blow up plastic tanks and army men. It is not fun if someone
is abusing one of these outrageous combinations\poorly playtested & developed mechanics.

I just think a lot of this stuff is a big step back from 5th. 5th was broken in some areas, but it's core mechanics were so much better.
6th almost feels "kiddy" in a lot of ways, like GW is catering to 14 year olds. It is almost like playing comic books in space.

locally we've scaled down to 1500 max lately. Gone are the days of 2000 craziness due to time constraints and in many ways I find this healthier as you really can't take that much stuff to make some of these super death stars work well at these point levels.

Even with no anti-death star unit, I can usually afford to lose 1 object be it vehicle/small squad a turn (starting usually turn 2 but mostly turn 3) and not really care all that much. (I.e. playing the mission and not the death star)

Expendibility has really become a stragety in 6th. I do really hate that I have to try and keep crowe alive to save on 2 VP's but them's the breaks.

Necron flier spam however I think is still the list to beat. More so than even IG fliers, those tesla hurt way too much for a transport with so much survivability. With a well rounded necron list, (i.e. only 4-5 fliers and not 8 or 9, with some strong assault mix and board presence,) I really see that as the list to beat for the next few tourneys. (until new codexes come out)

yakface wrote:Yeah, I can play the game, utilize the combos and pull of the tricks, but none of it works in my head anymore as cinema, because I cannot reconcile the complete implausibility of a single guy at the front of the unit magically able to suck all the bullets into him.

I dunno. Have you seen the movie Captain America? It seems totally cinematic to me to have one guy charging forward blocking shots with his shield while other guys run behind him. Close combat makes a little less sense, but there are tons of movies where one hero fights off dozens of guys at once. I'm also a player who is definitely more into the narrative aspects of the hobby, and I personally have found that a lot of the 6th edition rules enhance this aspect, especially with Overwatch, tanks being easier to kill, the flyer rules in general, etc.

How can one man with a shield expect to block projectiles aimed at a squad of 10, 20 or 30 men, even if said men were all in a conga line? Unless he can transcend time and space, appearing in multiple locations simultaneously, I have trouble seeing that happen.

Fetterkey wrote:

yakface wrote:Yeah, I can play the game, utilize the combos and pull of the tricks, but none of it works in my head anymore as cinema, because I cannot reconcile the complete implausibility of a single guy at the front of the unit magically able to suck all the bullets into him.

I dunno. Have you seen the movie Captain America? It seems totally cinematic to me to have one guy charging forward blocking shots with his shield while other guys run behind him. Close combat makes a little less sense, but there are tons of movies where one hero fights off dozens of guys at once. I'm also a player who is definitely more into the narrative aspects of the hobby, and I personally have found that a lot of the 6th edition rules enhance this aspect, especially with Overwatch, tanks being easier to kill, the flyer rules in general, etc.

I'm only speaking from my own personal feelings on the matter. Obviously if something works for your imagination then it works, no need to even explain further.

But for me, the #1 reason I've been into 40K for 20 years now is because the games play out as little movies in my head. And more than ever the 6th edition rules for me personally have shattered the movie in my head and now I just look at the table and see models I'm pushing around.

I can tell myself that my Tau have hired Ork Freebootas to help them out, but I don't feel it, like I did with my Ork Kan Wallm and no I can't see one guy at the front of the unit taking all of the firepower from 30 Orks. It would be cinemantic for that model to take SOME of the wounds (which they could do in 5th edition)...even the most beneficial wounds (that fits cinematically as heroes never seem to take the deathblow themselves), but for them to take EVERYTHING? No, that doesn't work for my mind cinema at all.

Which is more plausable in your head? A single well-armored dude at the front of a squad taking bullets, or the least valuable dudes disappearing from the back one by one? I'm not sure what the example is here, but even 2+ rerollables will roll ones. Not to mention ignoring, using mobility, using barrage, flyers, etc. And I'm sure things that aren't thought of yet.

The crazy Deathstar combos are disheartening, I'll agree there. I'm still glad people play it (as long as it's not me), and hopefully I can use these reports and lists to make some fun to play with lists that are at least competitive. But oh well, god forbid some people might be forced to house rule and play with friends and gaming clubs, or special events, to get their fix.

Meade wrote:Which is more plausable in your head? A single well-armored dude at the front of a squad taking bullets, or the least valuable dudes disappearing from the back one by one? I'm not sure what the example is here, but even 2+ rerollables will roll ones. Not to mention ignoring, using mobility, using barrage, flyers, etc. And I'm sure things that aren't thought of yet.

The explanation for pulling any casualties from the unit you wanted in 3rd-5th edition was that while it actually represented the guys with the good equipment at the front of the unit getting killed, but the model at the back (that you're actually removing as a caualty) was just running forward and picking up the specailty weapon and taking the place of the guy who died.

So in other words, this was an abstraction used to emphasize squad-based gameplay. I've long said that this one rules abstraction is really what splits 40K players as a community down the middle. Either you always 'got' and liked that abstraction for its elegance in making the game easier to play or you hated it and thought is was stupid that the guys at the back of a squad were getting removed.

I'm not saying one is right and the other is wrong, but rather they are two different styles of game that appeal to different people.

Obviously I'm someone who really likes the elegance of squad-based tactics in 40K, as opposed to model-based tactics. So I really liked where 40K was going 3rd-5th edition because I think that only the placement of the SQUAD in the game is really what should matter, not so much where the models in the squad are at any given time.

But 6th edition has taken a u-turn back to 2nd edition in many ways in this regard and has made model placement within a unit more important than it has been since that edition.


And as for 2+ re-rollable saves, yes you have a 1 in 36 chance to roll double 1s. Of course that can and will happen, but it is incredibly, incredibly unlikely and the characters that players use as tanks like this always have several wounds to burn through, so yeah, firing dead-on into the tank is almost literally an excercise in futility.

We all agree that there are still plenty of ways to combat this tacitc so it doesn't break the game or anything crazy like that, but I do think it is unconscionable that such a mechanic even exists because it is so ridiculously time consuming and frustrating to sit through.

But anyway, I'm really just talking about my personal preferences now. 6th edition is robust enough to provide a great time for a lot of different play styles, both super competitive and super casual. But I just personally don't care for the choices that were made as they've removed a lot of the rules elements that I thought were super positive and replaced them with ones I think are incredibly ridiculous.

@yakface... Your point is taken. It is a little less... intuitive, to figure out how to beat these new gimmicks than before. But it is also very easy to forget the really really stupid elements of 5th edition that are gone. I for one will NEVER miss the old bottom of turn 5 tank shock. 30 boys unable to score from that 35 point empty rhino that is crew shaken and missing its storm bolter. There were anti-climactic events in 5th edition that we just had to grin and bear, and those still exist. I play tabletop games made by other companies, illogical arbitrary annoyance exist there too.

I'm running the risk of sounding like an apologist here. Let me say this. It is fairly unlikely that I will compete in tournaments for 40k until a massive overhaul of some core tenets of the game are revised. I don't hold GW accountable for not making the game that I think is perfect, because the perfect game is defined differently for each person. Before i even concern myself with wound allocation, I need to get over

-180 minute games. Its too much of a time investment to risk playing against someone I don't get along with.

-true line of sight. I played about 10 months of warmachine while waiting for 6th edition to drop. This is not an exaggeration, I got in to more rules arguments in my first game of 6th edition, against a close friend and gaming group member, than I did in 10 months of playing a different game, including playing in tournaments. I'm sorry Jervis, I hate true line of sight. It is a subjective system and you can't use subjective systems in a competitive game.

-infantry moement interactions with vehicles. Not letting infantry get locked in combat with vehicles, nor forcing them to consolidate 1" away has always created a messy rules lockup. It is a different system in use for 6th edition, but I still don't fully understand how exactly we determine where to "replace" the models moved during a vehicle rotation. Yet another subjective rule. I'm sure my opponent will want to seal my vehicle in place, I'm sure that I'll have a different idea.

-random tables. I could live with random tables if the power level of the results were roughly equal, but they aren't and I don't want to lose a 180 minute game to a person I don't like because of a table roll.

-No scoring until turn 5. Nothing encourages funlines and mindless dice rolling more than to have no benefit for being in table center early. Relic is a good start, but self placed objectives and kill points make competitive games feel like non-tactical shootouts.

I have to get back to the actual discussion at hand, because I'm totally rambling...

A core point here is that people who know these dark secrets that break the game should only use these techniques against other jedi masters. I have no problem playing against your fortuned harlequins or your massive nob biker squad, just so long as I understand the terms of our game. No one should have to face a good 40k list unprepared, but belive me that goes for warhammer fantasy, warmachine and just about any wargame I've ever heard of.

I think the 'casual game' took BIG steps forward. Transports are still powerful, but are never frustrating, independent characters are measurably more powerful even without tricks, and characters are the hallmark of a casual fun game in my opinion. Random terrain, random psychic powers, and random objective bonuses inject variety into a matchup that you might have played multiple times against your friend. Flyers can enter the casual game, zoom around and have big impact, without making someone ragequit, and no one is going to lose a game on a final tank shock-contest move, if someone contests an objective in 6th, they earned it. Or their opponent was sloppy. And I love the allies concept on so many levels its not even funny. Primarily I love what it does to the casual game. "lost and the damned" "tau auxilaries" "chaos marines with real daemons" and "IG with marine support" are things this game has been thirsty for for 5 years.

I saw this movie once, and there was a line in it "with great power comes great responsiblity" All of you reading dakka are given power over the noobs and casuals, its your responsibility to not be a hobby-killer to anyone. And it is the responsibility of any TOs out there to clearly define the tone of their tourney. Is it "bring your hardest stuff, and don't whine." or is it, "lets all get together to meet new people, see pretty armies, and make new friends."

And if you are walking into a game store to play a pickup... bring two armies. I don't care if it costs you more money, if you don't have kid gloves in your battlefoam alongside your filthy necron army, you are heading to TFG land, expect difficulty setting up games, and expect low attendance at your birthday party.

I may not agree with the whole post but I think the conclusion is perfect.

/slowclap

Shep wrote:@yakface... Your point is taken. It is a little less... intuitive, to figure out how to beat these new gimmicks than before. But it is also very easy to forget the really really stupid elements of 5th edition that are gone. I for one will NEVER miss the old bottom of turn 5 tank shock. 30 boys unable to score from that 35 point empty rhino that is crew shaken and missing its storm bolter. There were anti-climactic events in 5th edition that we just had to grin and bear, and those still exist. I play tabletop games made by other companies, illogical arbitrary annoyance exist there too.

Of course 5th edition was flawed, but those particular flaws were things that could very easily been solved. In fact, there's so much of 6th edition changes that could have been added onto the core rules of 5th edition to produce what would have been IMHO the best version of the game to date (as I've felt about every edition up until this one).

Not allowing embarked units to score, not allowing vehicles to be scoring denial units, adding Hull Points, flyers, etc, all totally could have been done in the same 5th edition framework.

The key that I personally hate was abandoning the squad-based wound mechanics and replacing them with model-based mechanics.

There is no doubt that the 5th edition wound allocation system was incredibly problematic to say the least, but it really could have been easily fixed in 3 easy steps:


1) Wounds must be allocated onto models in unit by AP value (starting at AP1 and working up to AP- ). This would have stopped players from dumping all the 'nasty' wounds onto a single model if the unit happened to suffer a bunch of 'lesser' wounds as well.


2) Wounds should only be allocated based purely on different saving throws, NOT based on just different equipment carried by models. This would stop 95% of the wound spreading shenanigans that happened in multi-wound units in 5th edition. For example, Nob Bikers would all generally have the same saving throw, so any 2 wounds caused on them would result in a dead model instead of being able to be spread around.


3) The change presented by #2 would result in players being always able to keep alive certain models in the unit that they want (like a powerfist guy since he has the same save as the rest of the models you would be able to ensure he is always the last model to die), so to combat this you simply add in the same exact same 'precision shot/strike' rule you now have in 6th edition, which would add back in that element of not being able to ensure that a specific model is always going to be the last surviving member of the unit.


And with that, the 5th edition wound allocation rules are 'fixed' and work fine and are still based on a squad-based concept which allows cover to be done on squad based level which allows combat to be resolved on a squad based level and means the time involved playing the game doesn't skyrocket and you don't end up with (IMHO) logically stupid situations where a guy with a 2+ re-rollable save takes every single wound for the squad.

And hell, you could even have included allies exactly as they are now, but just simply get rid of the 'battle brothers' classification that allows ICs to join battle brother units or otherwise share their special rules. They could and should have just made a blanket statement restricting allied special rules from affecting their allies. Sure, people would still be taking allied Eldar to get access to Runes of Warding, but overall it would drastically reduce the special ability combo insanity that will be infecting most top-tier tournament armies now I suspect.

So please don't mistake that I think 5th edition was a perfect game or even necessarily 'better' than 6th, but rather I do think that fundamentally the choice to abandon primarily squad based mechanics and implement a bunch of model-based mechanics was a huge step backwards from my own personal point of view.

I'm running the risk of sounding like an apologist here. Let me say this. It is fairly unlikely that I will compete in tournaments for 40k until a massive overhaul of some core tenets of the game are revised. I don't hold GW accountable for not making the game that I think is perfect, because the perfect game is defined differently for each person. Before i even concern myself with wound allocation, I need to get over

-180 minute games. Its too much of a time investment to risk playing against someone I don't get along with.

Well, one thing I think is that the new edition really should be played at much lower point values (like 1,500 points), which should reduce that number back down to a much more reasonable 120-140 minutes.

-true line of sight. I played about 10 months of warmachine while waiting for 6th edition to drop. This is not an exaggeration, I got in to more rules arguments in my first game of 6th edition, against a close friend and gaming group member, than I did in 10 months of playing a different game, including playing in tournaments. I'm sorry Jervis, I hate true line of sight. It is a subjective system and you can't use subjective systems in a competitive game.

Here, I just have to disagree with you. You're right that TLOS is subjective, but I still stand firm that as soon as you remove it, you're basically playing a 2D game with size classifications, which defeats the entire purpose of playing on a 3D terrain table with 3D models. As far as I'm aware, Warmachine for example could be played entirely with felt terrain and flat markers instead of models that just had a description of what models they are on them. Frankly I think that's nuts, because you're missing utilizing the key component of what makes these games unique (3D models on 3D boards).

However, I do think that 5th edition handled this much better than 6th, because in 5th you generally only needed to worry about whether a model was obscured AT ALL in order to get cover, or if it was a vehicle/MC you had to figure out if it was 50% covered. I think 50% is a lot easier to roughly gauge than 25%, and now the 25% benchmark is applied everywhere all the time..

-infantry moement interactions with vehicles. Not letting infantry get locked in combat with vehicles, nor forcing them to consolidate 1" away has always created a messy rules lockup. It is a different system in use for 6th edition, but I still don't fully understand how exactly we determine where to "replace" the models moved during a vehicle rotation. Yet another subjective rule. I'm sure my opponent will want to seal my vehicle in place, I'm sure that I'll have a different idea.

Yeah, this is an odd one. They actually REMOVED clarifying text from the 5th edition rules in the transition about what happens when you're fighting a multi-combat with a vehicle and a non-vehicle unit, so its actually MORE confusing than it was in 5th edition. I actually have noticed this in several places in the rulebook, where they edited out clarifying text from 5th edition presumably to try to cut down the overall size of the rules (for example the rules explaining that you can't move through friendly models is now missing but then still referenced like it is there elsewhere in the rulebook). I think a lot of this hasn't been caught yet because people still in their minds assume that certain rules are still there, but as the years roll on I think we'll find quite a few issues stemming from stuff like this. I just hope they keep updating their FAQs as often as they were in 5th edition!

-No scoring until turn 5. Nothing encourages funlines and mindless dice rolling more than to have no benefit for being in table center early. Relic is a good start, but self placed objectives and kill points make competitive games feel like non-tactical shootouts.

Well, I think that's kind of the point of the random objective abilities. Since most of them are positive, it tends to give incentive to get your models near the objectives during the game. But yeah, I agree it would be nice to have a scoring mechanic that builds during the game, although unless implemented well it does have the potential to create games more often where there is absolutely no way for players to come back and win the game in the final turn because the other side has built up an insurmountable lead. There are ways around that problem (like making the scoring you get for holding an objective increase as the game goes on so the final turn is still the most important), but it is a problem with that kind of scoring system.

I think the 'casual game' took BIG steps forward. Transports are still powerful, but are never frustrating, independent characters are measurably more powerful even without tricks, and characters are the hallmark of a casual fun game in my opinion. Random terrain, random psychic powers, and random objective bonuses inject variety into a matchup that you might have played multiple times against your friend. Flyers can enter the casual game, zoom around and have big impact, without making someone ragequit, and no one is going to lose a game on a final tank shock-contest move, if someone contests an objective in 6th, they earned it. Or their opponent was sloppy. And I love the allies concept on so many levels its not even funny. Primarily I love what it does to the casual game. "lost and the damned" "tau auxilaries" "chaos marines with real daemons" and "IG with marine support" are things this game has been thirsty for for 5 years.

I saw this movie once, and there was a line in it "with great power comes great responsiblity" All of you reading dakka are given power over the noobs and casuals, its your responsibility to not be a hobby-killer to anyone. And it is the responsibility of any TOs out there to clearly define the tone of their tourney. Is it "bring your hardest stuff, and don't whine." or is it, "lets all get together to meet new people, see pretty armies, and make new friends."

And if you are walking into a game store to play a pickup... bring two armies. I don't care if it costs you more money, if you don't have kid gloves in your battlefoam alongside your filthy necron army, you are heading to TFG land, expect difficulty setting up games, and expect low attendance at your birthday party.

I agree with this and I guess the biggest problem I have is just that I do nearly all of my gaming these days in a tournament environment, so I kind of look to tournaments to both fulfill my competitive side AND my fluff side. I've always been okay taking an army that isn't necessarily the most powerful and just enjoying myself in tournaments doing pretty good and just enjoying the 'mind cinema' of each and every game.

But now with 6th edition, I see the writing on the wall that I don't think I can take a mid-level army and do okay anymore, because I think the allied super-armies will just obliterate me. So while I can see exactly the kinds of things I need to add into my armies to make them competitive, all those things involve allies and make my armies into something that no longer sings to my soul. And I think especially with miniature games, if I don't LOVE the army I'm fielding, then the passion to keep playing is not going to be there.

So while I know what I need to do to make my armies competitive, doing so will simultaneously destroy what makes me love my armies and the game. And sadly since I don't play in any casual circles, I don't have many outlets to play fun fluffy games using themed lists either.

Shep wrote:@yakface... Your point is taken. It is a little less... intuitive, to figure out how to beat these new gimmicks than before. But it is also very easy to forget the really really stupid elements of 5th edition that are gone. I for one will NEVER miss the old bottom of turn 5 tank shock. 30 boys unable to score from that 35 point empty rhino that is crew shaken and missing its storm bolter. There were anti-climactic events in 5th edition that we just had to grin and bear, and those still exist. I play tabletop games made by other companies, illogical arbitrary annoyance exist there too.

I'm running the risk of sounding like an apologist here. Let me say this. It is fairly unlikely that I will compete in tournaments for 40k until a massive overhaul of some core tenets of the game are revised. I don't hold GW accountable for not making the game that I think is perfect, because the perfect game is defined differently for each person. Before i even concern myself with wound allocation, I need to get over

-180 minute games. Its too much of a time investment to risk playing against someone I don't get along with.

-true line of sight. I played about 10 months of warmachine while waiting for 6th edition to drop. This is not an exaggeration, I got in to more rules arguments in my first game of 6th edition, against a close friend and gaming group member, than I did in 10 months of playing a different game, including playing in tournaments. I'm sorry Jervis, I hate true line of sight. It is a subjective system and you can't use subjective systems in a competitive game.

-infantry moement interactions with vehicles. Not letting infantry get locked in combat with vehicles, nor forcing them to consolidate 1" away has always created a messy rules lockup. It is a different system in use for 6th edition, but I still don't fully understand how exactly we determine where to "replace" the models moved during a vehicle rotation. Yet another subjective rule. I'm sure my opponent will want to seal my vehicle in place, I'm sure that I'll have a different idea.

-random tables. I could live with random tables if the power level of the results were roughly equal, but they aren't and I don't want to lose a 180 minute game to a person I don't like because of a table roll.

-No scoring until turn 5. Nothing encourages funlines and mindless dice rolling more than to have no benefit for being in table center early. Relic is a good start, but self placed objectives and kill points make competitive games feel like non-tactical shootouts.

I have to get back to the actual discussion at hand, because I'm totally rambling...

A core point here is that people who know these dark secrets that break the game should only use these techniques against other jedi masters. I have no problem playing against your fortuned harlequins or your massive nob biker squad, just so long as I understand the terms of our game. No one should have to face a good 40k list unprepared, but belive me that goes for warhammer fantasy, warmachine and just about any wargame I've ever heard of.

I think the 'casual game' took BIG steps forward. Transports are still powerful, but are never frustrating, independent characters are measurably more powerful even without tricks, and characters are the hallmark of a casual fun game in my opinion. Random terrain, random psychic powers, and random objective bonuses inject variety into a matchup that you might have played multiple times against your friend. Flyers can enter the casual game, zoom around and have big impact, without making someone ragequit, and no one is going to lose a game on a final tank shock-contest move, if someone contests an objective in 6th, they earned it. Or their opponent was sloppy. And I love the allies concept on so many levels its not even funny. Primarily I love what it does to the casual game. "lost and the damned" "tau auxilaries" "chaos marines with real daemons" and "IG with marine support" are things this game has been thirsty for for 5 years.

I saw this movie once, and there was a line in it "with great power comes great responsiblity" All of you reading dakka are given power over the noobs and casuals, its your responsibility to not be a hobby-killer to anyone. And it is the responsibility of any TOs out there to clearly define the tone of their tourney. Is it "bring your hardest stuff, and don't whine." or is it, "lets all get together to meet new people, see pretty armies, and make new friends."

And if you are walking into a game store to play a pickup... bring two armies. I don't care if it costs you more money, if you don't have kid gloves in your battlefoam alongside your filthy necron army, you are heading to TFG land, expect difficulty setting up games, and expect low attendance at your birthday party.

Probably one of the most brilliant and well written posts I have ever read on dakka.

Perfect dude.

One thing I will say about TOS - 99.9% of issues can be solved with a laser pointer. I found it an invaluable tool in 5th, and it will be essential in 6th.

yakface wrote:
So in other words, this was an abstraction used to emphasize squad-based gameplay. I've long said that this one rules abstraction is really what splits 40K players as a community down the middle. Either you always 'got' and liked that abstraction for its elegance in making the game easier to play or you hated it and thought is was stupid that the guys at the back of a squad were getting removed.

I'm not saying one is right and the other is wrong, but rather they are two different styles of game that appeal to different people.

Obviously I'm someone who really likes the elegance of squad-based tactics in 40K, as opposed to model-based tactics. So I really liked where 40K was going 3rd-5th edition because I think that only the placement of the SQUAD in the game is really what should matter, not so much where the models in the squad are at any given time.

But 6th edition has taken a u-turn back to 2nd edition in many ways in this regard and has made model placement within a unit more important than it has been since that edition.

I can see the appeal in squad based mechanics. TBH I would also not have complained if GW chose to refine the game further and make it simple, yet elegant to play.

But on the other hand, while I understand that a lot of visual situations in the game are rationalized in an abstract way (for example squadmembers picking up the special weapons of fallen comrades), the vast majority of changes just produce a visual/tactical level of detail that's better, for example the way combats occur and the way squadmembers are placed visually. You can really see on the tabletop what is supposed to be happening in the game. There is just more of a connect between the creation on the tabletop and the movie that's playing in your head, (until 2+ rerollable saves show up of course).

So I am all for the banning of unfun combos, house ruling, etc.... but I guess the point here is that as a modeller/gamer I think there's more opportunity here. to make cool-looking scenes on the tabletop and be part of them. Probably at lower points costs games, but if you do more with each individual model it's worth it... and maybe even not so expensive. I will admit it... I can finally do a cultist based chaos army with cool looking spiky bastions and that makes me very very happy.

This is my take on a gunline type army for 6th:

How to build a TAC (take all comers) list

gotta have a coverage for a wide variety of problems including

1) Psychic defense / ways to kill psykers ( vs Eldar/GK/SW/BA/tyranids for the most part)

2) Anti-air (just about everyone cept necrons and IG can potentially take out more of your air defences than you have so it's almost vital to have at least some air power yourself )

3) ways to preserve gunline - hold against fast movers/outflank/deep strike

4) at least some anti-horde and ways to get rid of cover.

5) some ways to at least slow down any deathstar / feed them cheap units

6) have some reserves - you really want first blood so keep the squishies off the first turn or so

7) CC tank of somesort with 2+ saves for melee, as well as some ways to deal with challenges and it could be that you just don't have anyone they can challenge

8) survivable objective campers

9) how to deal with 2+ armor

10) mobility

A List really needs to be able to do all of the above in some way shape or form to be good at competing as a TAC list now. Missing one or more of the above really leaves you open to getting curb stomped by some list that goes all out. i.e. if you don't have any psy defense, Nids will eat you whole. No anti-air, necrons will stomp you, no outflank protection, IG got some 8 rhinos and 50 guys that can show up on your door stop or some crazy deep strike crisis suit bomb.

I'd probably swap out #3 with something like how to dance around the gun line for the assault armies

yakface wrote:
But now with 6th edition, I see the writing on the wall that I don't think I can take a mid-level army and do okay anymore, because I think the allied super-armies will just obliterate me. So while I can see exactly the kinds of things I need to add into my armies to make them competitive, all those things involve allies and make my armies into something that no longer sings to my soul. And I think especially with miniature games, if I don't LOVE the army I'm fielding, then the passion to keep playing is not going to be there.

While I have been convinced since hearing the allies rules that there will be some ridiculous combos available I have yet to actually see any.

The eldar list that started this thread is a bad list and I would not worry about facing it with the sorts of balanced, unoptimised lists I have been using to get a feel for 6th. I still expect some shocking combos to come and maybe there is a more effective way to abuse fortune + shadow field but at the moment I see no reason to run for the hills.

The biggest problem with IC tanking in most games (non-competative) will be from much more simple units IMO. Eg. I tried out a unit of S+S Lichguard with a 2+ Over Lord last night in a friendly game. The unit jumped out of a Scythe in front of a blob of IG with lascannons and I put the OL at the front. I explained to my opponent that the OL was going to catch all the las gun fire and pass the Lascannons off to his 4++ guard. My opponent looked puzzled and I felt a bit bad.

Darklight wrote:One thing I will say about TOS - 99.9% of issues can be solved with a laser pointer. I found it an invaluable tool in 5th, and it will be essential in 6th.

I managed to avoid using one for most games in 5th, but now that I have been away, and now that most games seem like they are going to be including infantry (which is harder to TLOS check) I'll be putting one in my bag.

@yakface, You're right. And this is what I mean by 'no perfect game'. You like the TLOS because it is the only system, however flawed, that can really account for model height. And you like the old system for wound allocating better. I think that you wouldn't mind the new wound allocation ina casual setting where it wasn't being used as a tool to bend game outcomes, but rather just the way you do things. I'd be more than happy to play as many casual games as you can handle, because that is mostly what I'm going to be doing, we can either meet at Aero or I can host in my game room. I'll PM you my cell.

Thanks Reece for putting up these batreps and allowing this discussion to be born, I've been wathcing all the batreps and reading all the articles on frontline. Great job!

You lucky people in LA what with your sunny mild weather <_<

*jealous*

Wow, this has seriously been one of the best, most enlightening conversations I've had on-line in a long time. Thanks to everyone for contributing!

First, here are some pretty comprehensive articles on combat as we understand it to work, now, for those interested.

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/08/01/the-manly-art-of-fisticuffs-in-the-41st-millennium/

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/08/03/the-manly-art-of-fisticuffs-in-the-41st-millennium-an-addendum/#comments

As stated, I am gaining more respect for the intricacy of the rules as I learn them better. This really was a pretty well thought out system that truly does reward the skilled player.

However, it is also really, really nuanced. The devil is in the details and the better you are at the game the more of an advantage you will have. This excites me as a competitive player as it gives even more room to improve, but it also means (as others have said) that the gap between the competitive and casual gamer is going to increase.

As I and others have said also, you REALLY need to communicate your intents before the game to avoid a gakky experience.

I am enjoying 6th more as I learn it's nuances but there are a few little tweaks that would make this game AWESOME if they were implemented (at least in my opinion, anyway).

So we'll see. Tomorrow is the Golden Throne tournament which should have a pretty good turnout. I will be VERY interested to see our theories applied to reality.


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Oh, and I agree 100% about 1500. That is what we are playing at and the game is a lot more manageable at that points level. I was told point blank by a game tester that that is the points level the game was designed for.

Just have a question about the situation presented.

When rolling the saves for the model with 2++ rerollable, since he has 3 wounds, does he have to roll 3 of them at a time due to fast rolling? And does his 2++ go away after 1 is failed?

Is fast rolling, as presented in the rule book, required or an option?

So or example, would he roll 3 saves at a time, and if 2 were failed, then reroll the two failed together?

Fast dice states "can" so while not required the rules state you can roll them 3 at a time.

EDIT: NM fast dice is for models of the same save type, nothing is mentioned on a multiple wound model rolling multiple dice.

Frothmog wrote:Just have a question about the situation presented.

When rolling the saves for the model with 2++ rerollable, since he has 3 wounds, does he have to roll 3 of them at a time due to fast rolling? And does his 2++ go away after 1 is failed?

Is fast rolling, as presented in the rule book, required or an option?

So or example, would he roll 3 saves at a time, and if 2 were failed, then reroll the two failed together?

No, Shadow Fields require you to roll saves one at a time, since it goes away after one failure.

Someone post me this "dark harliestar" list so i can netlist it.

All jokes aside, seeing as i dont play anymore i'd like to see what makes the list so special.