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monolythic wrote:GW genuinely dislikes and generally frowns upon tournament play. They intended this game to be a beer and pretzels, painting hobby and the exponential growth of tournament douchbagery is distasteful to them.

That's why there are no official GW sanctioned tournaments anymore... 'Ard Boys was the last thing to be axed. The rules are so open to house rule interpretation, and without the papa company answering the questions, we can't have a standard tournament setting that is truly balanced.

Look at double FOC! I could never ever play in a tournament like that. The concept of it is truly mind numbing on a competitive level.

The GW designers thought it would be a cool idea, fluffologically speaking, for me to be able to put Dante and Calgar in the same army with balanced forces behind them and march into battle against the forces of Chaos.... and indeed that is cool, and fluffy, and the double FOC would allow me to play that out with my friend while splitting a 12ver and a Pizza. But in reality, at a tournament, all a double FOC does is allow a space wolves player to take 6 packs of long fangs and enough cyclone termie grey hunters to put out 42 missiles per turn!! 42 missile shots!! are you kidding me!! And what about the IG players who are waiting for the first double FOC tourny where they can bring 6 Vendettas and drop 18 TLLC shots.

No my friends tournaments are going to be fundamentally unbalanced for the foreseeable future. No standardized mission types, no top down tournament format template, and TO's with the ability to cut and paste the settings they want... I fear much gnashing of teeth.

I am skipping several pages of conversation here so forgive me if someone brought this up, but......

You really need to get to a GW store, because it is clear you have no idea what you are talking about.

GW sanctions not only tournaments in their own stores, but tournaments at privately owned game stores by providing for the prizes for said tournaments. This is a sanction, no matter how you look at it, and it happens far, far more often than in any other company in the business, including warmachine.

As a matter of fact, last time I checked each GW store had a 40k tournament once a month, with the bigger stores having tournaments twice a month, and it was the same for fantasy and lord of the rings.

Now, there WAS a statement made at one point about GW primarily being designed for what you describe, but they definitely support competitive play for prizes.

puree wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:But that is an exception, not a generality. If I run 30 feet across an empty grassy field I will trip maybe once in 50 times due to judging the terrain wrongly and not being able to catch myself. I am not a genetically engineered space elf, demon based on the concept of agility, or 800 pound man who can run through small cars without slowing down. I should be the worst case scenario, no the best.

Random charge ranges are purely random without explanation because no explanation or narrative example for the slowdown exists. It's pure inconsistency.

Running 30 feet across an empty grasy field is not really assault is it?

How many times have you run across a grassy field towards a line of angry aliens in power armor shooting rapid fire bolters at you, whilst also trying to ignore the 30' robot with tank crushing claws and gatling guns just a few feet to your right that is trying to kill you, whilst the ground under your feet is heaving from explosions and visibilty is obscured by various means, also you are trying to work out whether that garbled order to charge you half received across the deafening din of battle was to attack the unit in front of you or the unit to left of you? When everyone else in your team hesitates are you the one getting up and heading out alone or are you waiting for that moment that everyone decides together that they are meant to get up and attack?

Tell me which reason of those you mention applies to a charging Swarmlord.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Honestly, if you are going to complain about something all of a sudden becoming "randomized" (i.e.- now playstyle being based on the hopes of average dice) then maybe you should re-think how you've been strategizing this game all along.

Why? That doesn't even make sense. Why would I rethink knowing assault distances and proper movement in the last 30 years of this game because some turd in a bad vest decided it was more cinematic to terminators to trip in unison sometimes?

Imagine that in slow motion, hollywoodish style

Puree wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:before you roll for save, you roll to hit and to wound, it's not let's roll one dice to see whether this guy dies or not, the overall outcome of my units being shot at is more predictable

Its irrlevant whether it was 3 rolls leading to the result or 1, either way you have a probability of death or not.

The overall outcome of the enemy shooting at you is not more predictable unless you are looking at the most vague of predictions. 20 bolter shots at marines with a 1/9 chance of a kill per shot has an expected range of 0-7 kills, my idea of a 'more predictable' outcome is not that my squad might be all dead, totally untouched, or something in between. I could roll 1 dice or 20 dice with re-rolls and all sorts, if the final probability is 1/9 then the overall spread of likely results doesn't alter.

My chance of exploding the landraider with the melta I just outflanked behind it is ~20%, again hardly a 'more predictable' outcome, just roll a D5 and say it succeeds on a 5 rather than roll to hit, penetrate and damage affect.

1 or 2 dice are more prone to extreme outcomes than 20 dice due to law of large numbers. I'm more likely to fail 2d6 crucial charge than loose an entire unit to 20d6 of shooting with the same counted final probability for both (unless you count the effect of outcomes coming closer to average as more dies are rolled, and you don't) just because the number of dice thrown is diiferent..

ShumaGorath wrote:

And no one has made a sound argument as to why there are less tactical options.

That's because you don't understand the difference between a framework wherein tactical decision making is emphasized and one wherein tactical decisions can be made numerously with uncertain or negative consequences. A tactic is a "thing that produces a desired result", and thus it's on the impetus of the player to establish what his goal is with a specific tactic. You can never not have a "tactic" when you are willing to damage yourself to achieve a goal. That's also not likely going to be a "tactic" in the overarching framework of the game as you are producing a logically undesirable result for yourself in order to engage in an activity that you believe is beneficial or enjoyable. Tactics are purely subjective and thus something can not have quantitatively more of less of them unless choice is removed. That doesn't mean things can't be more or less tactical than one another. There are infinite "tactics" for flipping a coin, just as there are for rolling dice. When you remove "control" from the "tactics" you remove the efficacy of those tactics which is where you can measure how tactical a game is. Efficacy in decision making is the final arbiter in tactical choice driven scenarios. The efficacy in choice making under random assaults is lessened because control is lessened because results are uncertain. That random charge can invalidate every tactic that led to the scenario wherein that charge occurred. In a more tactical game the charge would be the culmination and continuation in a string of choice driven scenarios, not the one wherein choice becomes secondary to chance.

applause.jpg

Adam LongWalker wrote:Plumbumbarum Wrote:

Why is hobbyist and someone who wants competitive ruleset ussualy portrayed as being on opposite side of the fence, I don't get it. What stops a hobbyist from enjoying a good balanced ruleset, he/she plays by the rules anyway, no? Why a more luck based game is better for hobbyist, I don't know a single person incapable of grasping tactics in 40k after a few matches. So maybe better rules are good for everyone, just there are maybe different mindsets when sitting to the table but that's not a matter of rules. Not to mention a supposed WAAC would have a harder time to smash some pure fluffy army if there was more balance.

Quake 3 had normal maps and tourney maps, what's the problem for GW to make scenarios for tournaments with rules exceptions etc, everyone has fun. But no, narrative driven players are all like kill the WAAC, hooray no more tournaments and let's apologise for company laziness. It's not that the ruleset good for everyone is impossible, you can do it either with common rules or competitive core ruleset + optional narrative part/ narrative core ruleset + exceptions for competitive play . GW won't do it because the're lazy and there's no reason to work more - they will just use cinematic excuse, alienate part of the fanbase, cater to kids with new edition and there are people who will like all that anyway. Along with price hike, buying products to fix their already expensive products and whatever happens with the fluff but that's another topic.

QFT. Had friends way back when they worked on Quake 3 so I understand where you are coming from using that analogy. Those were the good old days.

I still play it despite having a high end PC and more fancy games, it aged really well btw and that's even before you see it with a texture pack.

Therion wrote:

I fear much gnashing of teeth.

Tournaments will be just fine because of TOs already making more balanced missions and considering whether allies, fortifications and double FOCs can be allowed in any way shape or form.

A lot of people seem to forget that many players don't play at any 'local stores' with kids, and only rarely play home games against their best friends, and instead go to a major tournament five or six times a year to enjoy the game, meet other players, see a ton of armies and play against a wide variety of opponents. Tournaments aren't just competition, they're the gaming scene interacting. It's only natural that the organisers will try to make the experience as enjoyable for everyone as possible by house ruling stuff they believe that people don't like. Sooner or later an established tournament rule set emerges out of necessity and regulars will know what house rules and comp restrictions to expect. I've been around for a long time and there's been a ton of composition restrictions especially on the Warhammer side for years and years and this discussion here just looks like a few people who are very used to everything being allowed being shocked that their game now has to be house ruled to be playable. This isn't the end of the world. Life will go on and maybe in four years when the next edition comes out there won't be need for as many restrictions. The goal of the house rules isn't balance, it's better balance, and as always the TOs will try to achieve this by making as few changes as necessary.

This. I work and look after kids in evenings and on weekends. Tournaments are my hobby outside of painting and Dakka, so im hoping TOs with more time than me bend brokensque rules into a semblance of fair.

ShumaGorath wrote:

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of tactics. Tactics is not the same as certainty in the least, less certainty does not mean less tactical. That's all the charge roll has introduced, less certainty.

You seem unable to differentiate between "tactics" and "choice". You are treating them like they are one and the same. Without a framework of intention with positive and negative consequences you can not have a tactic, nor can you have a tactic when the tactic produces an undesirable result (such as the one you keep mentioning).

I said, certainty does not equal tactics, which is what you seem to keep on saying. Probably no general in history has known what will happen with certainty, in many cases they haven't even been sure their orders will be recieved, much less executed, much less succeed.

I have no idea what tactic you are referring to me keep mentioning. What tactic do I keep mentioning? Are you trying to misrepresent what I have said?

And no one has made a sound argument as to why there are less tactical options.

That's because you don't understand the difference between a framework wherein tactical decision making is emphasized and one wherein tactical decisions can be made numerously with uncertain or negative consequences. A tactic is a "thing that produces a desired result", [...]

A tactic is a thing that produces a desied result if it is successful. The defintion of tactic is not something that always produces a desirable result without failure. That chance of failue can come from many sources, some under your control, some under the enemies, and some from happenstance. The fact that there is now a chance of a particular element of your tactic failing (the charge roll) does not mean there are less tactical options. Your tactical options are the same as before.

In our last game a psyker failed to get 2" over a wall and fire off his psychic power. Terrain has always made assault (or just plain movement) random since I got into 40k.

Irrelevant, the game doesn't have it, no one needs to argue why or why not. The argument is whether non certainty in charges that the game does have is less tactical than in 5th.

No, but if you're pro one and not the other it shows you to have no actual logical stance on this issue.

Logically, that is a fallacious argument, my view on A has no bearing on my view on B.

Quite the contrary, the roll for charge and understanding the probabilties makes the tactics of movement and positioning prior to that far more involved. If you think movement and positioning has been trivialised then you will probably be losing most games as you haven't grasped the increased importance of both.

Rolling dice isn't a tactic. Positioning is. You're only argument here is that players will have to recognize when it is or isn't beneficial to run instead of charging.

I never said rolling a dice is a tactic, I never said the only argument is run or charge. You are creating strawmen.

The lack of certainty means there is now much more involved move/poistion decisions to be made. The certainty before made such decisions trivial in comparison.

Before if I was advancing on a squad I knew its threat range was a distinct cut off point, and advanced accordingly. Now the threat range of many squads is both larger, but at the same time less certain. Where once you could advance 13" away from a squad and know you wouldn't be assaulted, now you are not absolutely safe 18" away, probably safe but not entirely. At the same time advancing to 12" and rapid firing is no longer in certain assault range. My heavy weapons now don't have to think they will automatically be assaulted by the unit at 12" away, but they do have to think they might be assaulted 15" away, should I stay or should I move. If I'm advancing several units on the enemy who also has assault capability, then I can maybe encourage him to charge one by being a bit closer and therefore make it less of a gamble on the charge roll, and keep safe the one I'd rather keep safe.

You have absolutely no idea what that word means and I would appreciate if you would stop using it.

I'm well aware of what 'tactics' mean, or did you mean another word?

If you are getting so stressed out about it that you have to resort to telling people to stop then, seriuosly, you shoud take a break for a day or two and come back in a more relaxed state of mind.

No, the lack of knowledge of charge success makes a huge difference to your decision making, irrespective of overwatch. You need to understand that just because one rule affects decision making (overwatch) does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that another rule doesn't (charge roll). Overwatch on the whole has a small affect on decision making compared to the charge roll.

Thank you for equivocating. So now overwatch doesn't matter? Your only example tactic hinged entirely on its existence. I sure do love debating people who don't have an actual point to their argument.

What example? How do I think overwatch doesn't matter when I just said it does? It seems like you are trying to create strawmen again.


Overwatch affects your decision making. That does not mean that the charge roll doesn't. Of the two things the charge roll will usually affect the decision making in a game far more than the overwatch. That should be obvious, the fact that I can't be sure of charging affects my movement and positioning whilst overwatch hardly ever will (i.e. outside of certain matchups). Even if I am not planning on charging, the charge probabilities will affect where I move and position my models to protect me from charges whilst consideraton of overwatch will be inconsequential.

The point is, 2d6 charge does not benefit tactical play in 40k. And as much as the point is useless when applied to a game, the generals in history could have been certain of trained infantry running their usual distance or elite cavalry beating untrained peasants. The black swan event was possible like peasants beating a cavalry but that's covered with hit/ wound / save rolls (like my friend rolling 5 dice and getting 5 ones for for saves yeasterday) and chaotic infantry charge with soldiers running into each other is rather a panic thing than something happening 1/3 of a time. That's not taking into account the grimdark will to fight, training, zealotry etc of space marines for example.

Plumbumbarum wrote:And as much as the point is useless when applied to a game, the generals in history could have been certain of trained infantry running their usual distance or elite cavalry beating untrained peasants.

I think just about every general in every war ever would disagree with that. Nothing is certain in war, and whether its tactics, circumstance, orders that never arrived, or individual generals being too cautious for their own good, once battle was joined you hoped that your training and overall plan would hold out.

I'm sure the French at Agincourt expected their "elite" cavalry to actually reach the archers and wipe them out. Terrain prevented that. The crusaders in the Holy Land would rout the enemy when their cavalry could actually reach and or catch them. Again, terrain, the speed of the muslims, and sometimes the lack of supplies/exhaustion prevented this.

40k has always offered a non-friction environment for you as a commander. And by that, I mean the Igo/Ugo always allows you to move everything (pinning excepted, and really, how often does that really matter), and mathhammering all the outcomes gives you a pretty good idea of how effective a unit will be, streaky dice excepted (again).

6th edition in my mind takes a lot of that certainty out of the game, introducing 'friction'. It also makes it harder for tournament players to actually "practice" for 40k tournaments, particularly with allies, random terrain, random charges, etc. You have zero idea what you might face, on what terrain, and how that might interfere with the carefully constructed lists and 'tactics' for a particular army.

Plumbumbarum wrote: the generals in history could have been certain of trained infantry running their usual distance

Running their usual distance on the playing fields of Eton, yes. Running their usual distance in a given unit of time in the middle of the chaos of a battle, no.

There is no defined time scale for the game, but in a game where men can only run the length of a few tanks at best it appears that the a turn represents a pretty small slice of time. In such a case even a brief hestitation as the troops look around to see what it is they are ordered to charge, and that they are not about to get blown to hell by something else to the side could make a difference to how far they ran in that amount of time. Getting shot at by their target may cause them to hesitate and need the Sgt shouting them on.

Sure, the game could get into a detailed psychological simulation of whether your troops did exactly what you ordered/hoped they would do, did they instantly understand who you meant them to charge, did they take the shortest route over open ground that you wanted, did they blithley ignore all the threats around them and run at the one enemy all the way 'over there'. Or we can represent all those uncertainties by the simple if abstract mechanic of the 2d6 charge roll, the further away the enemy is the more likey a failure to make contact is, for whatever reason.

As with any tactic you must judge the chance of success and the risks of failure. The game is not less tactical just because you have to account for a new rule that precludes god like knowledge of charge success. There may be tactics you can't get away with now, but equally there are things you can do now that you couldn't before.

evilsponge wrote:

What I am getting from this is hobbyists shouldn't play the game, TO's shouldn't change the game... except INAT, everything should be allowed as is... except Forgeworld, GW IS a competitive game... but isn't.

Why is hobbyist and someone who wants competitive ruleset ussualy portrayed as being on opposite side of the fence, I don't get it. What stops a hobbyist from enjoying a good balanced ruleset, he/she plays by the rules anyway, no? Why a more luck based game is better for hobbyist, I don't know a single person incapable of grasping tactics in 40k after a few matches. So maybe better rules are good for everyone, just there are maybe different mindsets when sitting to the table but that's not a matter of rules. Not to mention a supposed WAAC would have a harder time to smash some pure fluffy army if there was more balance.

Quake 3 had normal maps and tourney maps, what's the problem for GW to make scenarios for tournaments with rules exceptions etc, everyone has fun. But no, narrative driven players are all like kill the WAAC, hooray no more tournaments and let's apologise for company laziness. It's not that the ruleset good for everyone is impossible, you can do it either with common rules or competitive core ruleset + optional narrative part/ narrative core ruleset + exceptions for competitive play . GW won't do it because the're lazy and there's no reason to work more - they will just use cinematic excuse, alienate part of the fanbase, cater to kids with new edition and there are people who will like all that anyway. Along with price hike, buying products to fix their already expensive products and whatever happens with the fluff but that's another topic.

I"ve asked this question many times to people on this forum who routinely perpetrate this stereotype, none of them have replied with an answer yet.

I would be happy to give you my opinion on it.

I don't think there are many people who are saying a more balanced rules set is bad. I think the point people are making is the game designers specifically state this is not geared as a competitive ruleset, and accept the game for what it is. So when people complain about lack of balance, it's like complaining your family sedan can't go 0-60 in under 20 seconds. You can push the pedal down as hard as you like, but it's not going to magically turn into a sports car. You can call that laziness on the part of the game designers if you like, but just because you want the product they offer to be catered to your interests,doesn't mean that it's going to happen. They are catering to the largest amount of people possible, because after all, they are running a business.

I think the larger problem people have with competitive gaming, is not that they think others should play their way, but that they don't want the competitive scene spilling over into the casual scene. This is a very fair point, and I think if competitive players would try to understand the other point of view, perhaps there would not be such a schism between competitive and casual, or at the very least an understanding where everyone is coming from.

The problem with competitive gaming is not really competitive gaming itself, but rather the players bring competitive attitude to a casual game setting. No one cares that some people are strictly tournament players, and enjoy playing that way. The problem is the competitive players who don't have and "off switch" and show up to a pick up game with an uber list and start kicking the opponent's teeth in. No one wants to show up to a casual game and have the other dude throw down a cheese list and just get tabled.

What the high profile gamers such has Reecius and MVBrandt and others fail to acknowledge is that their blogs and blogs like BoLS influence how people play the game. I have plenty of respect for these people, and when I played with a lot more frequency than I do now, I played the BoLS crew all the time, and pretty much played Goatboy on a weekly basis. All these guys are really nice guys, and I'm sure Reecius, et al. are really nice too. So don't get me wrong when I single out competitive bloggers. I'm not pulling out the pitchfork, I'm just saying that when there is a big focus on competitive gaming, it shapes how people perceive the game, and the lists they build. This isn't an issue when you are competing in the national tournament scene, but most people reading these blogs aren't going to major tournaments, they're showing up to their local GW or FLGS with these lists and playing the guy just wanting to have fun with his favorite army.

This is why casual gamers take issue with competitive gaming. It's not that they don't think people should play that way, it's just they don't want people to show up and play them that way. Or at least that's my view and what I've heard stated by plenty of others as well.

I'll never forget the first day I walked into Reccius' store. The guy was sitting behind the counter and I had my warmachine stuff in hand. Suddenly he spinflip kicks me from across the room, steps on my warmachine stuff and starts yelling at me. "YOU WILL STOP PLAYING YOUR NAMBY PAMBY LISTS AND GROW SOME 40K BALLS! IF YOU DON'T I'LL KICK YOUR ASS AGAIN!" Ah, good times.

Starfarer wrote:
I don't think there are many people who are saying a more balanced rules set is bad. I think the point people are making is the game designers specifically state this is not geared as a competitive ruleset, and accept the game for what it is. So when people complain about lack of balance, it's like complaining your family sedan can't go 0-60 in under 20 seconds. You can push the pedal down as hard as you like, but it's not going to magically turn into a sports car. You can call that laziness on the part of the game designers if you like, but just because you want the product they offer to be catered to your interests,doesn't mean that it's going to happen. They are catering to the largest amount of people possible, because after all, they are running a business.

It would be good if we could untangle "competitive" from "balanced", because they're not the same thing. Competitive is the opposite of casual, but "balanced" games can be played both ways, usually better than unbalanced games. Nobody loses when the rules are well designed and give a level playing field.

Yeah, a balanced ruleset makes for better competitive games AND for better forging-a-narrative games. Unless, you know, the narrative that you like to forge is "Grey Knights always beat Tyranids". Which might be an OK narrative in a story, but gets very dull, very quickly, in a game.

Starfarer wrote:So when people complain about lack of balance, it's like complaining your family sedan can't go 0-60 in under 20 seconds.

Perhaps GW should lower prices then, because honestly it feels like I paid for the sports car and got a used family sedan instead.

Too bad there's no lemon law for miniature wargames, GW would be fethed. Especially when they advertise their game as "the ultimate contest of strategy and skill" and give us this super casual "beer and pretzels" gak.

Ian Sturrock wrote:Unless, you know, the narrative that you like to forge is "Grey Knights always beat Tyranids". Which might be an OK narrative in a story, but gets very dull, very quickly, in a game.

That's actually one of the reasons why I'm wary about "narrative gaming" in general.

I don't get why we compare real war history with a tabletop simulation. The point of the simulation is to replicate "real" war, and there are better ways than pure random to do that.

For better or worse, we are not commanders in the field. We know when our soldiers are attacking 3 units instead of 1 or over trees instead of open ground. We know when it will be exploding ground and green troops or when it will be hard and elite terminators. the examples from the crusades or Agincort are poor ones, because they highlight tactics NOT based on randomness. The english put rough terrain between the french knights and their archers. the muslims knew to use speed to stay away from crusading knights. they knew that there was no chance a knight could randomly decide to charge and go 13 inches. choosing situations that make it difficult or impossible for your opponent to effectively engage or avoid engagement with you are hallmarks of tactical history in warfare.

Not being able to perfectly simulate the impact of bullets fired en masse is a physics equation beyond the Ken of any tactician ... Reflecting this with probabilistic dice sets is a good thing. Making a charge random is not ... Because the designers have taken every other random part of that component out of the game. unlike the randomness of agincort and other giving examples where are plantains did not fully know or see the terrain or enemy ... 40 k lets you perfectly understand what you're getting into. you know exactly how hard opponent's fight or how badly theyll shoot you up as you charge.

Being able to only charge 2" suddenly in the open with elite troops against the worst opponents should not even be as common as it statistically can be presently. Sure charges are random ish. Better to have made it d6+3 than 2d6 random. You're not reflecting reality at all by making one final variable random, when every single other component and calculation was not.

That said, it's a core component of the game. Enjoy it, play with it, or ... Don't

Elemental wrote:

Starfarer wrote:
I don't think there are many people who are saying a more balanced rules set is bad. I think the point people are making is the game designers specifically state this is not geared as a competitive ruleset, and accept the game for what it is. So when people complain about lack of balance, it's like complaining your family sedan can't go 0-60 in under 20 seconds. You can push the pedal down as hard as you like, but it's not going to magically turn into a sports car. You can call that laziness on the part of the game designers if you like, but just because you want the product they offer to be catered to your interests,doesn't mean that it's going to happen. They are catering to the largest amount of people possible, because after all, they are running a business.

It would be good if we could untangle "competitive" from "balanced", because they're not the same thing. Competitive is the opposite of casual, but "balanced" games can be played both ways, usually better than unbalanced games. Nobody loses when the rules are well designed and give a level playing field.

40k has never been balanced, and probably can't be truly balanced without starting from scratch. This is basically what happened from 2nd to 3rd Edition, and it sucked all the interesting stuff out of the game. They've been adding the fun stuff back in ever since. I will take flavor at the cost of balance any time. Maybe you can have both, but that's not the game GW is selling.

Sidstyler wrote:

Starfarer wrote:So when people complain about lack of balance, it's like complaining your family sedan can't go 0-60 in under 20 seconds.

Perhaps GW should lower prices then, because honestly it feels like I paid for the sports car and got a used family sedan instead.

Too bad there's no lemon law for miniature wargames, GW would be fethed. Especially when they advertise their game as "the ultimate contest of strategy and skill" and give us this super casual "beer and pretzels" gak.

Believe me, I would love for GW to lower their prices. The problem is, like every other company in the world, they know they can charge more, and aren't going to cut us a deal to so we can all go around and tell people what nice guys they are.

Your lemon law comparison isn't really relevant though. Lemon laws don't apply to how much you like the car while you're driving, only that it runs. You may not like how 40k plays, but it is a complete game. Your aren't entitled to it being the best game ever and that it be perfectly suited to your individual desires.

Starfarer wrote:40k has never been balanced, and probably can't be truly balanced without starting from scratch. This is basically what happened from 2nd to 3rd Edition, and it sucked all the interesting stuff out of the game. They've been adding the fun stuff back in ever since. I will take flavor at the cost of balance any time. Maybe you can have both, but that's not the game GW is selling.

You certainly can, and other games have managed it well enough (Warmachine springs to mind, as do a couple of Spartan's games). The choice between balance and fun is a completely false one, and only people who can't design rules well will tell you otherwise.

Starfarer wrote:
40k has never been balanced, and probably can't be truly balanced without starting from scratch. This is basically what happened from 2nd to 3rd Edition, and it sucked all the interesting stuff out of the game. They've been adding the fun stuff back in ever since. I will take flavor at the cost of balance any time. Maybe you can have both, but that's not the game GW is selling.

It's funny how so many other games have managed to get it right though while GW gets a pass from so much of its playerbase. Heavy Gear, Infinity, etc can all do very narrative based games and still have excellent balance. In fact, I'd argue that a typical Heavy Gear pickup game is probably more narrative and representative of a typical fluff battle than any 40k scenario game, and, at least amongst the major factions meant to be played on their own, the balance is very good.

Elemental wrote:

Starfarer wrote:40k has never been balanced, and probably can't be truly balanced without starting from scratch. This is basically what happened from 2nd to 3rd Edition, and it sucked all the interesting stuff out of the game. They've been adding the fun stuff back in ever since. I will take flavor at the cost of balance any time. Maybe you can have both, but that's not the game GW is selling.

You certainly can, and other games have managed it well enough (Warmachine springs to mind, as do a couple of Spartan's games). The choice between balance and fun is a completely false one, and only people who can't design rules well will tell you otherwise.

Balance came at the expense of fun and characterful elements of armies and rules in 3rd edition. In that specific example I was giving where they attempted to balance the game as a whole, that was the case. They seem to have been moving away from that from every new edition since 3rd.

Vaktathi wrote: It's funny how so many other games have managed to get it right though while GW gets a pass from so much of its playerbase. Heavy Gear, Infinity, etc can all do very narrative based games and still have excellent balance. In fact, I'd argue that a typical Heavy Gear pickup game is probably more narrative and representative of a typical fluff battle than any 40k scenario game, and, at least amongst the major factions meant to be played on their own, the balance is very good.

I'm not giving anyone as pass, I'm accepting the reality of the situation and enjoying the game they offer for what it is. I find it pointless get so worked up about the design philosophy of a game they can't possibly hope to change. If you don't like it you can find a game like those mentioned that cater to the desire to play a tightly written ruleset that focuses on balance or competitive gaming.


That being said, we have not yet seen the FAQS planned for September so we don't know what changes could be in store for 40k. There could be a massive overhaul that levels the playing field between all forces. I would't hold my breath though.

Cruentus wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:And as much as the point is useless when applied to a game, the generals in history could have been certain of trained infantry running their usual distance or elite cavalry beating untrained peasants.

I think just about every general in every war ever would disagree with that. Nothing is certain in war, and whether its tactics, circumstance, orders that never arrived, or individual generals being too cautious for their own good, once battle was joined you hoped that your training and overall plan would hold out.

There was a lot of randomness but human run speed is kind of predictable. It can be slowed down or even stopped by shooting but getting down to rules it's overwatch covering it, no need for randomised movement especialy the wild 2d6. It can be slowed down or stopped because of the panic but that's covered in unit stats under, guess what, leadership value prone to morale tests.

As for orders that never arive or circumstances, do not apply to 40th millenium warfare.

Cruentus wrote:6th edition in my mind takes a lot of that certainty out of the game, introducing 'friction'. It also makes it harder for tournament players to actually "practice" for 40k tournaments, particularly with allies, random terrain, random charges, etc. You have zero idea what you might face, on what terrain, and how that might interfere with the carefully constructed lists and 'tactics' for a particular army.

Yeah the whole "more importance on the field" point. Could be great if real but why 2d6 charge and challenges then, seems to me that the idea is kind of defeated by those. The quote below from the other thread and the article linked there is sadly confirming this:

H.B.M.C. wrote:As soon as you add more random elements to a game you reduce the competitive aspects. It'd be like if you had to roll to see which of your units go to do anything in a turn (eg. on a '1' on a D6 your unit is frozen in time - and imagine this happens to every unit every turn). This would utterly destroy anything even remotely competitive.

The same thing happens with random, sorry, 'cinematic' charges.

I mean this is what Reecius said over on Taco Bell:

Random Charge lengths stink. Point blank, and I will make no apologies about hating this rule because it flat out isn’t fun. I understand why it is in the game to an extent (by the same logic, shouldn’t weapon ranges be random, too?) but I think a straight 2D6” is just TOO random. I can’t count how many games were lost because of failed charges from 3” away in the open. When you outmaneuver your opponent, and then just through dumb luck fail a charge that costs you the game, that sucks ass. There is nothing fun about it.

And that's not all the randomness he talks about in that editorial.

puree wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote: the generals in history could have been certain of trained infantry running their usual distance

Running their usual distance on the playing fields of Eton, yes. Running their usual distance in a given unit of time in the middle of the chaos of a battle, no.

I'm talking about running speed on the plain field when charging the enemy, before getting into battle.

Middle of the chaos of the battle, geting down to rules again is covered under CC rules, repeat it's about the pure running speed before the infantry crosses swords or maces with the enemy, assuming the orders are clear and arrived on time etc. About distractions, they could have got distracted by fire (overwatch), mortars or cannons fire (shooting phase), terrain (difficult terrain) or cavalery charging them (some kind of "fear" rule), none of those is an excuse for randomising the charging speed itself - the chaos of the battle could be reflected with a lot of other, more convincing ways.

puree wrote:Sure, the game could get into a detailed psychological simulation of whether your troops did exactly what you ordered/hoped they would do, did they instantly understand who you meant them to charge, did they take the shortest route over open ground that you wanted, did they blithley ignore all the threats around them and run at the one enemy all the way 'over there'. Or we can represent all those uncertainties by the simple if abstract mechanic of the 2d6 charge roll, the further away the enemy is the more likey a failure to make contact is, for whatever reason.

The game already did with all the fluff and apart from puny humans, most armies be it brainwashed enhanced superhuman soldiers, soulless robots, bugs lacking any self awerness, battle crazed fungus, sadist pirates, pyromaniac psychotic nuns or corrupted madmen would behave exactly like that, go shortest route, ignore threats and run at the enemy imo . They instantly understood what they are meant to charge because of all those helmets, 40000 years of technology, hive mind or sth. Seems to me the only army needing 2d6 charge is IG and that's only until the Comissar shoots the first idiot that stopped to think again, that's the nature of "only war universe" as I understand it.