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I think its very easy for both of those crowds to get what they want. The base rules of the game are a skeleton for you to hang whatever rules you want on, depending on what experience you're looking for. Don't like stratagems? Just don't use them, they aren't an integral function of the game. Same goes for WLTs, relics, chapter tactics, whatever else. The tournament side will put everything relevant on the skeleton, but from what i can tell most people here don't go to tournaments, so maybe just have a conversation of expectations with your group.

It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to. Despite all this it's actually a lot more shallow as a game than it used to be, or compared to other games. The truth is that if all this cloud of needless complication were removed, it would become quite apparent how all armies have been robbed of any character or unique gameplay, and more people than currently do would realise that every army has a slightly varied version of the "reroll-1's-to-hit" leader or "mortal-wound-dealing-psyker" character and so on. This isn't to say this can't be a feature in a game. MESBG units across factions do have many similarities (all captains being 2M, 1W, 1F for example), but it's the fact that the core rules for it is much more impactful on the gameplay than current 40k, that the difference in Courage between a man and an orc means a big deal compared to any difference in a given characteristic between two 40k profiles.

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to. Despite all this it's actually a lot more shallow as a game than it used to be, or compared to other games. The truth is that if all this cloud of needless complication were removed, it would become quite apparent how all armies have been robbed of any character or unique gameplay, and more people than currently do would realise that every army has a slightly varied version of the "reroll-1's-to-hit" leader or "mortal-wound-dealing-psyker" character and so on. This isn't to say this can't be a feature in a game. MESBG units across factions do have many similarities (all captains being 2M, 1W, 1F for example), but it's the fact that the core rules for it is much more impactful on the gameplay than current 40k, that the difference in Courage between a man and an orc means a big deal compared to any difference in a given characteristic between two 40k profiles.

yeah the changes to morale was proably a bad thing for 40k TBH, especially as any army with a lowish leadership score tends to have ways to reduce the impact of the rule.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to. Despite all this it's actually a lot more shallow as a game than it used to be, or compared to other games. The truth is that if all this cloud of needless complication were removed, it would become quite apparent how all armies have been robbed of any character or unique gameplay, and more people than currently do would realise that every army has a slightly varied version of the "reroll-1's-to-hit" leader or "mortal-wound-dealing-psyker" character and so on. This isn't to say this can't be a feature in a game. MESBG units across factions do have many similarities (all captains being 2M, 1W, 1F for example), but it's the fact that the core rules for it is much more impactful on the gameplay than current 40k, that the difference in Courage between a man and an orc means a big deal compared to any difference in a given characteristic between two 40k profiles.

yeah the changes to morale was proably a bad thing for 40k TBH, especially as any army with a lowish leadership score tends to have ways to reduce the impact of the rule.

Exactly, it just doesn't mean much. Same with Strength. 9 or 10 is anti-tank, 6 and 7 have relatively niche uses, 5 is the sweet spot, and anything less is p*ssing in the wind. For a scale that goes from 1 to 10, they could instead have 4 possible characteristics and it would be just the same.

Sorry, but when marines can fail morale it's a better system. Horde armies have few mitigation effects so far.

But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

My favorite is when Killa Kans get scared and die

I went with "No - Not complicated"

40k is not complicated IMO.

It is very very convoluted though.. Has roundabout mess of layers of layers of rules with a side of "bespoke rules" but the game itself is laughably simple...

 Vankraken wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

My favorite is when Killa Kans get scared and die

The grot in the kan can't panic?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

Die, run away, cower, etc.

Having units run away was a really janky system. And then you need a recovery system, but then the units with lower leadership would recover less often. Haves and have nots.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

My favorite is when Killa Kans get scared and die

The grot in the kan can't panic?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

Die, run away, cower, etc.

Having units run away was a really janky system. And then you need a recovery system, but then the units with lower leadership would recover less often. Haves and have nots.

Theres always haves and have nots...
I have 3+D3 damage shooty guns. You do not... You have psychic might I do not..

I think the old morale tests for being pinned or falling back etc. was heading in the right direction.
It wasn't perfect but it meant leadership mattered. Also having your general dude inspiring his underlings to hold firm was pretty thematic.

Rather then telling them to shoot better...

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Die, run away, cower, etc.

Justify it however you want, but when the morale system makes taking certain units a detriment to your army, then that's an issue, especially when big multi-wound models can just vanish into thin air because you failed a single dice roll.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Having units run away was a really janky system.

Was it?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And then you need a recovery system...

Do you?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
... but then the units with lower leadership would recover less often.

Only if you restrict yourself to one narrow view of what morale could be.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Haves and have nots.

There will always be units that are better or worse when it comes to Leadership. The problem comes when the punishment for failing morale tests don't scale properly and affect 1 wound Grots in the same way as multi-wound Kans (or ATVs, another example that springs to mind - unless they're somehow immune).

All you've said is that nothing can be done about morale because you didn't like the old system. That's not a reason not to change the current punitive and badly scaling morale system that exists in 9th.

 Argive wrote:

Theres always haves and have nots...
I have 3+D3 damage shooty guns. You do not... You have psychic might I do not..

I think the old morale tests for being pinned or falling back etc. was heading in the right direction.
It wasn't perfect but it meant leadership mattered. Also having your general dude inspiring his underlings to hold firm was pretty thematic.

Rather then telling them to shoot better...

The weapons and such exist on a different plane of issues.

I just don't think it should be that Orks are punished more for just being Orks and then forcing a warboss to be baby sitting units instead of being up where he wants to be. It was a feels-bad system and that's why people found every opportunity to avoid it by using fearless units.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Argive wrote:

Theres always haves and have nots...
I have 3+D3 damage shooty guns. You do not... You have psychic might I do not..

I think the old morale tests for being pinned or falling back etc. was heading in the right direction.
It wasn't perfect but it meant leadership mattered. Also having your general dude inspiring his underlings to hold firm was pretty thematic.

Rather then telling them to shoot better...

The weapons and such exist on a different plane of issues.

I just don't think it should be that Orks are punished more for just being Orks and then forcing a warboss to be baby sitting units instead of being up where he wants to be. It was a feels-bad system and that's why people found every opportunity to avoid it by using fearless units.

Nobs could get "Crack some eds" ability to help pass morale. Also mob rule and other such things.
There are ways to boost morale and factions like orks could get some tricks to help in that department...

Also orks have more acess to single entity units now like booster blasters, morkonauts, stompas, etc, where a big blob of boys isint the only think you could run.

I dunno what the fix is but currently the current paradigm makes leadrship an almost irelevnt stat which you can completely ignore with a strat at a crucial point where it would actualy matter..

"haha! I just butchered 18 out of your 19 below average human dudes! The last guy will surely pretend he is dead or straight up run and not be able to hold the vital objective"

"He auto passes morale and stands in the face of your mecha demon from hell..."
No roll. No test. No nothing.. Hows that not a feel bad ?

Pancakey wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Sometimes I wonder if people are playing the same game as me...

9th edition of 40k complex? Really? This ridiculously trivial game is supposed to be complex?

Most people seem to be complaining about not being able to memorize every single rule of the game at all times... which is completely unnecessary to play the game and has nothing to do with complexity.
Not to mention all this whining about how complicated stratagems are and how hard it is to know which ones your opponent will be using...

Complexity definition - difficult to analyze, understand, or explain.

Gw is purposely adding layers of and layers COMPLEXITY and removing DEPTH.

Yeah, it's none of those three. Game states are trivial, the rules are easy to play and it has never been easier to explain the game. It's just not a complex game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 the_scotsman wrote:
The aspect of older editions I really miss though, is...sometimes I just want to use a wargame as a means to 'see what happens' rather than like, this big MENTAL CONTEST OF BRAIN-WILLS AND WITS TO BAMBOOZLE MY OPPONENT INTO SUBMISSION!

There's not much to that in 9th. Everything pretty much goes to plan, and the game tends to be 'your plan vs your opponent's plan.'

Usually, if you want stuff to die, it dies. If you want a unit to arrive right here, right now, it does just that. If you want a weapon to work, generally it works.

IMO one problem of 5th was that bad rules and balance allowed some armies to get around the "not everything goes according to plan" part, while others couldn't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to.

Care to provide a list of some examples? No 8th edition codices please.
This gets repeated over and over, and yet it doesn't seem to be true for neither my games nor the one I observe being played on streams or tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But having stuff just up and die is a bad way to resolve morale.

If remember correctly, most units in older editions ran to the table edge and died then. Unless they were marines, if they ran too fast and crossed the magic line they dropped dead, otherwise they remembered that they shouldn't be afraid and got back in the fight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There will always be units that are better or worse when it comes to Leadership. The problem comes when the punishment for failing morale tests don't scale properly and affect 1 wound Grots in the same way as multi-wound Kans

Having bad leadership and being unreliable is part of killa kanz - after all, they are gretchin welded into a murder bot. And it's not like it doesn't scale at all, you need to cause casualties to make a unit fail their morale, and causing multiple casualties to a multip-wound unit is harder. It also scales with unit size, as attrition is less likely to take out models if you have less of them. To have gretchin flee, a single bolter is usually sufficient to kill one and have two or three flee.

(or ATVs, another example that springs to mind - unless they're somehow immune).

ATVs are ld7 and 1-3, so you need to kill two to make the third fail a test on a 6, which you can re-roll with a CP. So not completely immune, but close.

Daedalus81 wrote:Sorry, but when marines can fail morale it's a better system. Horde armies have few mitigation effects so far.

The problem with Morale is it's just yet another way of killing the enemy. It's just yet more lethality on top of the already stupidly lethal system. It also does a poor job of representing what it claims to. Morale should be more about reducing enemy effectiveness without actually killing them. Epic represented this well with the blast marker system where even coming under fire and taking no damage had a small detrimental effect. Eventually all those small effects would stack up into a bigger one and you'd break but even then you didn't just remove the unit.

Adding a way to affect the enemy without actually killing them would add some much-needed depth to the game, IMO.

Jidmah wrote:

Yeah, it's none of those three. Game states are trivial, the rules are easy to play and it has never been easier to explain the game. It's just not a complex game.

Usually, if you want stuff to die, it dies. If you want a unit to arrive right here, right now, it does just that. If you want a weapon to work, generally it works.

The core rules are indeed simple but I've witnessed far too many new players get increasingly bewildered at the Rube Goldberg machine that is the byzantine combination of strats, WL traits and unit special rules that combine to wipe their army off the board to see 40k as anything other than an over-complicated mess. At one point it seemed like some of the players at my club knew a new player's Space Wolves better than he did himself because they were aware of a whole bunch of generic strats for the army that he wasn't yet, for example.

Saying if you want a unit to die it just dies doesn't mean the methods for doing that are simple. Often the lethality in 40k is not due to a unit's stats or weapons. Too often it's down to a combination of aura buffs, targeted buffs and/or strats and psychic powers that turn a relatively unassuming unit into something that's deleting swathes of the enemy in a single phase. I'd say that meets one of the definitions of complexity.

Jidmah wrote:

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to.

Care to provide a list of some examples? No 8th edition codices please.
This gets repeated over and over, and yet it doesn't seem to be true for neither my games nor the one I observe being played on streams or tournaments.

The big problem with 40k's complexity is it doesn't make the game any more challenging or create any sort of skill gap unless you think memorising a bunch of strats and special rules interactions is skilful. I can provide numerous examples of things being missed or played wrong because there's so little consistency in GW's rules. In particular, switching from, say Necrons to SM, means re-familiarising yourself with all the strats and special rules for a different army. You need to remember if that Prayer affects Core, or is it Infantry, or is is Core and Characters...then you need to remember which strats you have access to at any given moment. And that's before you get to the needlessly complex damage resolution in 40k where you roll and re-roll dozens of dice.

None of this stuff is difficult but it is needlessly complex and leads to feel-bad moments when something gets misplayed because it's slightly different from another similar ability or rule. Actions are a good example. Most are only able to be performed by Infantry. But there are a few that exclude characters from that, then there are a few that allow Infantry or Bikers units to do them and still more that allow any unit, except Aircraft. Why? Why add so many individual caveats to a simple rule. Also, why write it in such a way that you need to scan the paragraph of text to spot the restrictions instead of summarising them at the start or end of the rule? Then you have a bunch of rules that require you to be within, range of something to get an effect, but sometimes it's wholly within and sometimes you need to be completely outside of 6" of the centre with a whole unit, sometimes just some models.

Again, this isn't difficult to understand on a case-by-case basis. It's just pointless additional bookkeeping and rule checking that slow everything down for no reason.

I think Star Wars Legion does morale well, I think DUST uses a similar system.
I was never much of a fan of the 5th-7th edition system, IMO it was too binary.

The current system is worse though, it doesn't feel like morale at all. It also directly contributes to lethality in a game that's generally considered too lethal. Morale should provide an alternative to lethality, thus creating more ways to interact with the game and each other.

In Legion every time you get shot, you gain a suppression token. Being suppressed causes a unit to hunker down, improving their cover. If you have suppression equal to your leadership, you're pinned and lose an action. If you have double your leadership you panic and flee the table.
There's various ways to interact with morale. Some weapons are suppressive, adding extra tokens. Commanders inspire nearby units, preventing them from panicking. Veteran units have higher morale.
But everything suffers from morale. Some units have high leadership meaning they need to really be soaking in the fire, but they don't flat out ignore it.
It adds a real dynamic which feels almost as important as actually killing things.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I think Star Wars Legion does morale well, I think DUST uses a similar system.

Can you give a brief summary of how DUST handles morale?

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The current system is worse though, it doesn't feel like morale at all. It also directly contributes to lethality in a game that's generally considered too lethal. Morale should provide an alternative to lethality, thus creating more ways to interact with the game and each other.

This is a really good point that you and Slipspace have brought up.

Morale in 40K isn't really morale. It's the "Now more of your men die because I killed them" phase. They're just extra casualties. It's less of a "win more" thing for your opponent, but more of a "lose more" thing for you. Congrats, your unit was blasted by enemy fire, and now some of them die in a way that is completely divorced from the usual toughness, wounds or saving throw mechanics. Have fun!

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It adds a real dynamic which feels almost as important as actually killing things.

I'm wary about tokens - but this did start as an FFG game, so of course it's filled with fething endless tokens - but the concept is sound.

Eh, I'm not opposed to tokens at all.
You could alternatively use something Bolt Action pinning tokens, which are more like a dial.

I can't really summarise DUST's system as I don't play the game. But from having read through the rules I few times, I believe they use a similar system to Legion where units gain suppression as they get shot, and lose actions if they get too much.

I think with tokens its ok to have one or two following a unit around, but any more following units around on the table becomes messy quite quickly. Esp in a game where you've lots of models on the table and units near to each other.

I think token heavy works when you've got a unit/squad card that you can put the tokens on in the side board off the table play space. Then you can have loads tracking information on the units "card" and information block whilst keeping the actual play area free.

Heck even in skirmish games if you've lots of tokens its messy as you've got to move them all aorund the terrain as well as models.

So sort of 60% of players in this poll think that the current 40K experience ia too complex or cumbersome... Thats a bad sign.

Dakka is the grognards though.
In my local group it's more like 80% of players can't even fathom the idea.

I actively played 8th and started with 9th ed... But due to the pandemics lost regular touch with 40k game... And now I have no clue how to properly play the game, its very underwhelming.

40k maibly works as a gamming community because it is so huge... Its has a brutal inertia but it alienates many folks with all his flaws and ineficiencies... Its sort of mymyc the IOM in setting.

It's not complex, it's complicated, because it's bloated and wordy.

Slipspace wrote:

Spoiler:

Daedalus81 wrote:Sorry, but when marines can fail morale it's a better system. Horde armies have few mitigation effects so far.

The problem with Morale is it's just yet another way of killing the enemy. It's just yet more lethality on top of the already stupidly lethal system. It also does a poor job of representing what it claims to. Morale should be more about reducing enemy effectiveness without actually killing them. Epic represented this well with the blast marker system where even coming under fire and taking no damage had a small detrimental effect. Eventually all those small effects would stack up into a bigger one and you'd break but even then you didn't just remove the unit.

Adding a way to affect the enemy without actually killing them would add some much-needed depth to the game, IMO.

Jidmah wrote:

Yeah, it's none of those three. Game states are trivial, the rules are easy to play and it has never been easier to explain the game. It's just not a complex game.

Usually, if you want stuff to die, it dies. If you want a unit to arrive right here, right now, it does just that. If you want a weapon to work, generally it works.

The core rules are indeed simple but I've witnessed far too many new players get increasingly bewildered at the Rube Goldberg machine that is the byzantine combination of strats, WL traits and unit special rules that combine to wipe their army off the board to see 40k as anything other than an over-complicated mess. At one point it seemed like some of the players at my club knew a new player's Space Wolves better than he did himself because they were aware of a whole bunch of generic strats for the army that he wasn't yet, for example.

Saying if you want a unit to die it just dies doesn't mean the methods for doing that are simple. Often the lethality in 40k is not due to a unit's stats or weapons. Too often it's down to a combination of aura buffs, targeted buffs and/or strats and psychic powers that turn a relatively unassuming unit into something that's deleting swathes of the enemy in a single phase. I'd say that meets one of the definitions of complexity.

Jidmah wrote:

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to.

Care to provide a list of some examples? No 8th edition codices please.
This gets repeated over and over, and yet it doesn't seem to be true for neither my games nor the one I observe being played on streams or tournaments.

The big problem with 40k's complexity is it doesn't make the game any more challenging or create any sort of skill gap unless you think memorising a bunch of strats and special rules interactions is skilful. I can provide numerous examples of things being missed or played wrong because there's so little consistency in GW's rules. In particular, switching from, say Necrons to SM, means re-familiarising yourself with all the strats and special rules for a different army. You need to remember if that Prayer affects Core, or is it Infantry, or is is Core and Characters...then you need to remember which strats you have access to at any given moment. And that's before you get to the needlessly complex damage resolution in 40k where you roll and re-roll dozens of dice.

None of this stuff is difficult but it is needlessly complex and leads to feel-bad moments when something gets misplayed because it's slightly different from another similar ability or rule. Actions are a good example. Most are only able to be performed by Infantry. But there are a few that exclude characters from that, then there are a few that allow Infantry or Bikers units to do them and still more that allow any unit, except Aircraft. Why? Why add so many individual caveats to a simple rule. Also, why write it in such a way that you need to scan the paragraph of text to spot the restrictions instead of summarising them at the start or end of the rule? Then you have a bunch of rules that require you to be within, range of something to get an effect, but sometimes it's wholly within and sometimes you need to be completely outside of 6" of the centre with a whole unit, sometimes just some models.

Again, this isn't difficult to understand on a case-by-case basis. It's just pointless additional bookkeeping and rule checking that slow everything down for no reason.

I was asking for specific examples. The only one you provided is that prayers not affecting everything is apparently complexity, all your other words else is just the generics you also hear from people who have admitted to not playing 9th at all.
And for the action thing... there is room for improvement clearer, but really after playing a few times you will notice that the default is non-character infantry and really - the keywords a all caps, in bold and in a different font. If you are not using battlescribe print-outs for rules, it should be super easy to spot.

If this really was as much as problem as people make it out to be, you should easily be able to name two or three examples from your last few games.

 Jidmah wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Spoiler:

Daedalus81 wrote:Sorry, but when marines can fail morale it's a better system. Horde armies have few mitigation effects so far.

The problem with Morale is it's just yet another way of killing the enemy. It's just yet more lethality on top of the already stupidly lethal system. It also does a poor job of representing what it claims to. Morale should be more about reducing enemy effectiveness without actually killing them. Epic represented this well with the blast marker system where even coming under fire and taking no damage had a small detrimental effect. Eventually all those small effects would stack up into a bigger one and you'd break but even then you didn't just remove the unit.

Adding a way to affect the enemy without actually killing them would add some much-needed depth to the game, IMO.

Jidmah wrote:

Yeah, it's none of those three. Game states are trivial, the rules are easy to play and it has never been easier to explain the game. It's just not a complex game.

Usually, if you want stuff to die, it dies. If you want a unit to arrive right here, right now, it does just that. If you want a weapon to work, generally it works.

The core rules are indeed simple but I've witnessed far too many new players get increasingly bewildered at the Rube Goldberg machine that is the byzantine combination of strats, WL traits and unit special rules that combine to wipe their army off the board to see 40k as anything other than an over-complicated mess. At one point it seemed like some of the players at my club knew a new player's Space Wolves better than he did himself because they were aware of a whole bunch of generic strats for the army that he wasn't yet, for example.

Saying if you want a unit to die it just dies doesn't mean the methods for doing that are simple. Often the lethality in 40k is not due to a unit's stats or weapons. Too often it's down to a combination of aura buffs, targeted buffs and/or strats and psychic powers that turn a relatively unassuming unit into something that's deleting swathes of the enemy in a single phase. I'd say that meets one of the definitions of complexity.

Jidmah wrote:

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to.

Care to provide a list of some examples? No 8th edition codices please.
This gets repeated over and over, and yet it doesn't seem to be true for neither my games nor the one I observe being played on streams or tournaments.

The big problem with 40k's complexity is it doesn't make the game any more challenging or create any sort of skill gap unless you think memorising a bunch of strats and special rules interactions is skilful. I can provide numerous examples of things being missed or played wrong because there's so little consistency in GW's rules. In particular, switching from, say Necrons to SM, means re-familiarising yourself with all the strats and special rules for a different army. You need to remember if that Prayer affects Core, or is it Infantry, or is is Core and Characters...then you need to remember which strats you have access to at any given moment. And that's before you get to the needlessly complex damage resolution in 40k where you roll and re-roll dozens of dice.

None of this stuff is difficult but it is needlessly complex and leads to feel-bad moments when something gets misplayed because it's slightly different from another similar ability or rule. Actions are a good example. Most are only able to be performed by Infantry. But there are a few that exclude characters from that, then there are a few that allow Infantry or Bikers units to do them and still more that allow any unit, except Aircraft. Why? Why add so many individual caveats to a simple rule. Also, why write it in such a way that you need to scan the paragraph of text to spot the restrictions instead of summarising them at the start or end of the rule? Then you have a bunch of rules that require you to be within, range of something to get an effect, but sometimes it's wholly within and sometimes you need to be completely outside of 6" of the centre with a whole unit, sometimes just some models.

Again, this isn't difficult to understand on a case-by-case basis. It's just pointless additional bookkeeping and rule checking that slow everything down for no reason.

I was asking for specific examples. The only one you provided is that prayers not affecting everything is apparently complexity, all your other words else is just the generics you also hear from people who have admitted to not playing 9th at all.
And for the action thing... there is room for improvement clearer, but really after playing a few times you will notice that the default is non-character infantry and really - the keywords a all caps, in bold and in a different font. If you are not using battlescribe print-outs for rules, it should be super easy to spot.

If this really was as much as problem as people make it out to be, you should easily be able to name two or three examples from your last few games.

Thanks for that nice heap of condescension and assumption, all of which is wrong. I'm playing 9th edition pretty much weekly at this point and don't use BS for anything other than building my lists.

Other needlessly complex/different rules include things like the Chapter Master upgrade being able to affect characters while the regular Captain aura doesn't. Or the endless list of restrictions for Command Protocols, or the bizarre array of different ranges for aura-style effects Necrons have - they can have stuff that operates at 3", 6" or 9", in some cases two different ones in the same unit with the same condition. Playing Blood Angels requires the use of 2 Codices, one of which is about twice the size of any other Codex, then you need to consult the mission rules in a separate book and potentially an FAQ as well. That's just awful game design when compared to most other games on the market. I literally can't remember the last time I had to look up an FAQ or even the rules reference playing X-Wing, for example.

None of these things are difficult to parse, but it is needless complexity that gets in the way of actually playing the game. Even cycling through the book looking for the stratagem you know exists is tedious and time-consuming. I'm sure you'll just come out with some other excuse and yet more baseless assumptions but I think it's pretty clear from the general direction of this thread that there are a significant number of people who find the game too complex.

To add to the "Morale Debate", once their new codex drops Thousand Sons Astartes will effectively be FEARLESS again: they will auto-pass morale.

So, message to gw: Please, for the love of Curze's Corps, don't stick with the USELESS "Scary Marines" flanderization for Night Lords! It doesn't work, never has worked, and apparently won't in 9th either.

 Argive wrote:


"haha! I just butchered 18 out of your 19 below average human dudes! The last guy will surely pretend he is dead or straight up run and not be able to hold the vital objective"

"He auto passes morale and stands in the face of your mecha demon from hell..."
No roll. No test. No nothing.. Hows that not a feel bad ?

"Insane bravery" has been an admired part of Warhammer for a long time.

You're dealing with a known quantity. It is at this very moment where all the previous decisions culminate. The CP spent on smoke, interrupts, etc governs whether or not they have that capability. And if they still have enough then you better not leave it to chance.

Slipspace wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Spoiler:

Daedalus81 wrote:Sorry, but when marines can fail morale it's a better system. Horde armies have few mitigation effects so far.

The problem with Morale is it's just yet another way of killing the enemy. It's just yet more lethality on top of the already stupidly lethal system. It also does a poor job of representing what it claims to. Morale should be more about reducing enemy effectiveness without actually killing them. Epic represented this well with the blast marker system where even coming under fire and taking no damage had a small detrimental effect. Eventually all those small effects would stack up into a bigger one and you'd break but even then you didn't just remove the unit.

Adding a way to affect the enemy without actually killing them would add some much-needed depth to the game, IMO.

Jidmah wrote:

Yeah, it's none of those three. Game states are trivial, the rules are easy to play and it has never been easier to explain the game. It's just not a complex game.

Usually, if you want stuff to die, it dies. If you want a unit to arrive right here, right now, it does just that. If you want a weapon to work, generally it works.

The core rules are indeed simple but I've witnessed far too many new players get increasingly bewildered at the Rube Goldberg machine that is the byzantine combination of strats, WL traits and unit special rules that combine to wipe their army off the board to see 40k as anything other than an over-complicated mess. At one point it seemed like some of the players at my club knew a new player's Space Wolves better than he did himself because they were aware of a whole bunch of generic strats for the army that he wasn't yet, for example.

Saying if you want a unit to die it just dies doesn't mean the methods for doing that are simple. Often the lethality in 40k is not due to a unit's stats or weapons. Too often it's down to a combination of aura buffs, targeted buffs and/or strats and psychic powers that turn a relatively unassuming unit into something that's deleting swathes of the enemy in a single phase. I'd say that meets one of the definitions of complexity.

Jidmah wrote:

 Banzaimash wrote:
It is a complex game for all it's moving parts and the fact you need to have a degree in library science to run certain armies with the number of books they need, and all the overlapping, pinging-off-each-other buffs and synergies that gives rise to.

Care to provide a list of some examples? No 8th edition codices please.
This gets repeated over and over, and yet it doesn't seem to be true for neither my games nor the one I observe being played on streams or tournaments.

The big problem with 40k's complexity is it doesn't make the game any more challenging or create any sort of skill gap unless you think memorising a bunch of strats and special rules interactions is skilful. I can provide numerous examples of things being missed or played wrong because there's so little consistency in GW's rules. In particular, switching from, say Necrons to SM, means re-familiarising yourself with all the strats and special rules for a different army. You need to remember if that Prayer affects Core, or is it Infantry, or is is Core and Characters...then you need to remember which strats you have access to at any given moment. And that's before you get to the needlessly complex damage resolution in 40k where you roll and re-roll dozens of dice.

None of this stuff is difficult but it is needlessly complex and leads to feel-bad moments when something gets misplayed because it's slightly different from another similar ability or rule. Actions are a good example. Most are only able to be performed by Infantry. But there are a few that exclude characters from that, then there are a few that allow Infantry or Bikers units to do them and still more that allow any unit, except Aircraft. Why? Why add so many individual caveats to a simple rule. Also, why write it in such a way that you need to scan the paragraph of text to spot the restrictions instead of summarising them at the start or end of the rule? Then you have a bunch of rules that require you to be within, range of something to get an effect, but sometimes it's wholly within and sometimes you need to be completely outside of 6" of the centre with a whole unit, sometimes just some models.

Again, this isn't difficult to understand on a case-by-case basis. It's just pointless additional bookkeeping and rule checking that slow everything down for no reason.

I was asking for specific examples. The only one you provided is that prayers not affecting everything is apparently complexity, all your other words else is just the generics you also hear from people who have admitted to not playing 9th at all.
And for the action thing... there is room for improvement clearer, but really after playing a few times you will notice that the default is non-character infantry and really - the keywords a all caps, in bold and in a different font. If you are not using battlescribe print-outs for rules, it should be super easy to spot.

If this really was as much as problem as people make it out to be, you should easily be able to name two or three examples from your last few games.

Thanks for that nice heap of condescension and assumption, all of which is wrong. I'm playing 9th edition pretty much weekly at this point and don't use BS for anything other than building my lists.

Other needlessly complex/different rules include things like the Chapter Master upgrade being able to affect characters while the regular Captain aura doesn't. Or the endless list of restrictions for Command Protocols, or the bizarre array of different ranges for aura-style effects Necrons have - they can have stuff that operates at 3", 6" or 9", in some cases two different ones in the same unit with the same condition. Playing Blood Angels requires the use of 2 Codices, one of which is about twice the size of any other Codex, then you need to consult the mission rules in a separate book and potentially an FAQ as well. That's just awful game design when compared to most other games on the market. I literally can't remember the last time I had to look up an FAQ or even the rules reference playing X-Wing, for example.

None of these things are difficult to parse, but it is needless complexity that gets in the way of actually playing the game. Even cycling through the book looking for the stratagem you know exists is tedious and time-consuming. I'm sure you'll just come out with some other excuse and yet more baseless assumptions but I think it's pretty clear from the general direction of this thread that there are a significant number of people who find the game too complex.

Thank you for this.

The word “complex” is not a measurement an individuals level of intelligence.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
"Insane bravery" has been an admired part of Warhammer for a long time.

Insane Bravery was fun because it only happened once in a blue moon and was up to the dice, not whenever you have magic points to spare and want it to happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I think Star Wars Legion does morale well, I think DUST uses a similar system.

Can you give a brief summary of how DUST handles morale?

A unit that takes any hits receives an Under Fire token. That token itself does nothing, but if they receiver another it becomes a Suppression token and the unit is considered suppressed. Units that are suppressed lose their first (of two) actions each turn and are less likely to be able to perform reactions. To rally you roll 2 dice; if you get 1 'hit' (5-6 equivalent) you downgrade a Suppression to Under Fire, and if you get 2 hits you remove the token entirely.

So basically, it's another example of a system where units that come under fire get gradually degraded in their abilities, without them running off the field.

That's my issue with the old morale system and the simpler but functionally similar replacement- units are fine until suddenly they're fleeing at top speed, or they're fine until they suddenly start taking extra casualties. In either case there's no sense of suppressing or pinning an enemy, and leads to feels-bad moments for both players- for an attacker whose volley is utterly worthless if it doesn't kill anything, and for a defender who suddenly has a whole unit fleeing or extra models getting removed seemingly out of nowhere.

We use a suppression mechanic that temporarily removes a unit's ability to either move OR shoot.

Whichever ability remains available is reduced to D6" for every 6" normally allowed.

For example, if a model has a 24" range weapon to shoot, when suppressed its range becomes 4D6" instead. If a model could move 7", then it can move D6+1", and so on.

HOW things are suppressed is another story...