Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Well, on the whole "accidentally good army list" front, that happened to me with both 40k and AoS.

In 2017, I created a fun Slaanesh Daemons army. The lore was built around the idea of a "court" of six Keepers of Secrets around an Exalted Keeper. So seven Keepers, all using 3rd party models because the current keeper at the time was from like 2nd edition.

Suddenly, in 2019, an explosion of new Slaanesh releases (new battletome for AoS) and abrupt support for an army that everyone genuinely thought would be killed off. In AoS, Keeper spam became the super amazing ridiculous list, and so I quit playing.

Come 9th edition 40k, and once again keepers of secrets are the gold standard for a tough, fast, fighty melee unit on a small board. The max allowed KoS is not an uncommon list.

Fortunately the latest AoS battletome toned them back down, but jeepers batman.

Sure, it happens, absolutely. You 100% get people who just own a particular army and then a new codex comes out and that army is amazing, and then obviously, you get people busting that army out again after it's been generally sitting on a shelf or whatever. and when an army is down near the bottom, people tend to not play it as much - my least played armies right now are Thousand Sons and Genestealer Cults and Craftworld Eldar for a reason.

but this idea that those armies existing in theory invalidates others is a pure fantasy. In reality, if you have a group of people who aren't interested in chasing the meta dragon, it is almost always vastly MORE possible for people to be playing the top factions, the 'meh' factions, and the bottom factions against each other because the people who stumble into the top factions rarely have every unit or combo that makes that faction truly top-tier.

And if they do? Then they win a lot of games for a while, people chuckle about how busted their gak is now, sometimes in the most extreme circumstances they may have trouble getting a game or they may choose to play less broken armies for a bit.

Then a couple months pass, a couple more codexes come out or a CA drops or whatever, and the guy who's got the accidentally top-tier army doesn't anymore.

It's wild that there are people out there like this tiger dude that are so utterly laser-focused on top tier competitive play that they chalk up groups choosing to spend vastly more money and time and effort than is necessary to play worse games on purpose to 'human nature.'

I'd argue that the desire to not spend as much time or money to constantly be buying new units is actually a lot truer to 'human nature' than this constant expenditure state, which requires the input of a constant media diet of competitive meta-analyses, staying on top of every new book and rule release, often an addiction to websites purposefully set up to fuel that behavior like ebay, and a desire to use the exuse of a third party ruleset to allow for behavior that in other settings would be considered interpersonally repuganant.

My problem is I literally quit playing AoS over that. I felt pretty terrible playing my Slaanesh with that first battletome.

I haven't actually played Slaanesh since though I hear the new tome is okay.

Just wish the game could be balanced so I didn't have to feth around with my lore (not-keepers, suddenly!) or my opponent's enjoyment.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My problem is I literally quit playing AoS over that. I felt pretty terrible playing my Slaanesh with that first battletome.

I haven't actually played Slaanesh since though I hear the new tome is okay.

Just wish the game could be balanced so I didn't have to feth around with my lore (not-keepers, suddenly!) or my opponent's enjoyment.

You do seem to fall face-first into the trap I generally warn any new player about: themed lists that revolve around spamming one unit or one category of unit to the exclusion of all others. You are by no means a bad person for doing that, and it's a common inclination people have, but it is in my opinion usually a mistake.

A skewed list is always going to spend a greater fraction of its time unenjoyably OP or unenjoyably UP than a varied list. If you choose a unit at random and make that unit 50% or more of your points, and I choose units and random within a faction and just bring 1-2 of each of them, I will end up with a generally average, usable list much more commonly than you will.

Well, yes, but depending on faction that isn't an army to me.

What people call "theme" I call "narrative" or whatever. But the whole "my army is 2 basilisks, 2 Russes, 2 hellhounds, 2 guard squads, 2 conscript squads..." Etc makes me go

"Wtf type of regiment is this?"

Now I will grant that Daemons are one of the few that could get away with "1 of everything" highlander style lists, but as you point out this tends to be my personal preference the other way.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
This is human nature like i stated before. This thread shows the arms-race in action. Rules have to attempt to accommodate for that in the listbuilding phase or people are just going to get blown out before the game even starts.

My post was nothing to do with the game itself, rather people attempting to "out casual" each other with more inane and stupid definitions of casual gaming.

Voss wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I know you got tricked into buying GK and have been your scene’s whipping boy for several editions, and that colours your outlook, but try seeing things from someone else’s POV and you might grok things better.

I know you were born poor and ended up getting kicked down the rungs of society's greased ladder for your entire life, and that colours your outlook, but try imagining how sweet life is for the upper-classes and you'll see why your experience is invalid.

I genuinely don’t know if this is agreement, rebuttal, Rule 1 violation or what! Help me out and explain?

Canadian's 'rephrasing' what you said to Karol, because apparently 'obviously' you're actually going for oppressive class warfare in your stance.

However you want to take it, I wouldn't bother with engaging it.

Ohhh I see. An attempted “fixed that for you” that in no way reflects the intent or meaning of my post? Cool, cool. Waste of forum space then, I see. Thanks for the explanation as it was such an odd post I was clueless.

 Gert wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
This is human nature like i stated before. This thread shows the arms-race in action. Rules have to attempt to accommodate for that in the listbuilding phase or people are just going to get blown out before the game even starts.

My post was nothing to do with the game itself, rather people attempting to "out casual" each other with more inane and stupid definitions of casual gaming.

That's my point, this is a display of the same human nature.

Taking Dakka posts as a signifier of human nature is about as unscientific as saying Earth is the centre of the universe. You have a bunch of outliers who don't represent the majority of people in the hobby declaring "casual gaming isn't real" and taking it as fact. To repeat what someone else has already said, most Warhammer players will never post on a forum.

Yet 100% of philosophy 101 edgelords will!

To be frank I would take "most warhammer players will never post on a forum" with a grain of salt.

Maybe not DakkaDakka itself. But they will be active in FB groups, on reddit, and other websites in general. The age where someone can plausibly do a hobby without engaging with it on the internet at all is gone, I think, and my suspicion is that anyone enthusiastic about the hobby will engage with it digitally as well as physically.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
To be frank I would take "most warhammer players will never post on a forum" with a grain of salt.

Maybe not DakkaDakka itself. But they will be active in FB groups, on reddit, and other websites in general. The age where someone can plausibly do a hobby without engaging with it on the internet at all is gone, I think, and my suspicion is that anyone enthusiastic about the hobby will engage with it digitally as well as physically.

Not necessarily.

There's five in my core group. im the only one on forums and one of two who actively 'likes' wargaming stuff on the book of faces, and the other one hasn't done much 'liking' in a long time, and even then, it was looking at new releases rather than tactics chatter.

Thata 20% actively engaged online so yeah its an assertion I find entirely plausible.

Deadnight wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If you need to create your own scenarios or self imposed rules balances, you shouldn't pay for the bad rules to begin with. There's zero reason people should be defending one army's fluffy list is significantly worse than another army's, yet we have people doing it anyway.

As I said, missing the forest for the trees.

You are mistaking two very different things.

I see very few people 'defending' imbalance here. Very few people, outside of, say, Traditio, would say 'it's a good thing that tau are significantly less powerful than everyone else's.
What people are doing is suggesting work around, alternative approaches and fixes at their end to deal with these issues.

Youre a classic black Knight. You are so busy screaming at gw, you think everyone not screaming at gw and not being apoplectic with rage like you is the enemy and is somehow defending the things you are screaming about, just because they're not angry and screaming like you. You're wrong. Get over your hate. In my expenitence, the people working out their issues and game building with each othet are getting a lot more out of their games and their love for their hobby than you are.

In terms of 'paying for the rules', I also pay for the lore and other stuff that comes packaged in a codex/rulebook. Rules are a bonus, as I see it.

This is honestly hilarious. It really is.

Your workarounds are exactly the problem I've been talking about. Instead of making GW "game designers" do their jobs properly, we got people like you still defending their buying of absurdly expensive codices because "rules are a bonus" to you. This is exactly the white knight behavior that keeps the power creep going. "Oh don't worry, just because your TAC army is bad just buy some other models". "Oh your TAC army is too good, buy some other models". This isn't about skew lists, this is the fact some fluff armies are literally broken compared to other armies.

If you're going to take the approach you keep preaching you don't even need the rules as you're always modifying them to YOUR liking. Just randomly throw around some dice and see who rolled better.

Also I think it's hilarious nobody has been able to answer the question I've been asking: if a brand new game came out of nowhere with a different IP but had the same exact rules and prices, would you buy it or give it a good review?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnnyHell wrote:

Voss wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I know you got tricked into buying GK and have been your scene’s whipping boy for several editions, and that colours your outlook, but try seeing things from someone else’s POV and you might grok things better.

I know you were born poor and ended up getting kicked down the rungs of society's greased ladder for your entire life, and that colours your outlook, but try imagining how sweet life is for the upper-classes and you'll see why your experience is invalid.

I genuinely don’t know if this is agreement, rebuttal, Rule 1 violation or what! Help me out and explain?

Canadian's 'rephrasing' what you said to Karol, because apparently 'obviously' you're actually going for oppressive class warfare in your stance.

However you want to take it, I wouldn't bother with engaging it.

Ohhh I see. An attempted “fixed that for you” that in no way reflects the intent or meaning of my post? Cool, cool. Waste of forum space then, I see. Thanks for the explanation as it was such an odd post I was clueless.

Then what else did you mean?

Deadnight wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
To be frank I would take "most warhammer players will never post on a forum" with a grain of salt.

Maybe not DakkaDakka itself. But they will be active in FB groups, on reddit, and other websites in general. The age where someone can plausibly do a hobby without engaging with it on the internet at all is gone, I think, and my suspicion is that anyone enthusiastic about the hobby will engage with it digitally as well as physically.

Not necessarily.

There's five in my core group. im the only one on forums and one of two who actively 'likes' wargaming stuff on the book of faces, and the other one hasn't done much 'liking' in a long time, and even then, it was looking at new releases rather than tactics chatter.

Thata 20% actively engaged online so yeah its an assertion I find entirely plausible.

Interesting.

Without social media, my local WG group wouldn't function. Almost all of our members are digitally active, watching battle reports and participating in FB discussions either in our local club, on our store page, or elsewhere.

So, for my anecdote, 100% of my club (over 80 people) are digitally active, otherwise they couldn't be club members.

 the_scotsman wrote:
The wild thing, for me, is the fact that it's easier - and I know, I know, everyone is going to jump down my throat and say BUT WHAT IF I JUST HAPPENED TO CHOOSE EXACTLY THE COMPETITIVE UNITS OF JUST THIS EXACT MOMENT WHAT THEN but, outside of bizarre outliers like that that do happen, its easier and cheaper to just not...make super competitive skew lists.

I've played somewhere that it's just not all that common practice for anyone to keep up with the competitive joneses for the longest time, and the net result is just that you generally end up with less one-sided PUGs, more games that actually last to turn 5, and everyone involved saves a ton of money.

At the end of the day, people understand that what goes around, comes around. What's amazing right now is unlikely to stay that way for 6 months. So the general, unspoken club policy is that people just don't tend to choose to buy things just to get the rules that those things have right now, and they tend not to throw models in the garbage if the balancing cycle of the game has moved past them. Sure, every once in a while, something being really competitive catches someone's attention and they build a unit in a particular way, but then people tend to just keep them on after they're not top tier anymore because gak's not free. The guy who bought into Militarum Tempestus because he'd always liked how they looked but they suddenly became really good in early 8th is still playing his MT army now that they're lower-tier, as is the guy who got into custodes when they were having a moment.

Its incredible to me that there apparently exist groups out there where the norm is dropping hundreds and hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours trying to chase the dragon of having an up-to-the-moment tournament tier list at any given time. That's so many times more effort than just everyone building their collections at a reasonable, affordable pace, and what do you get for it? A group that's just impenetrable by new players or returning collectors? Shorter, less interesting games? a 4x more expensive hobby?

I agree with this and I think it's a good assessment of the common 40K groups. People don't build lists, they build collections. They have a goal or a picture of their army in mind and build that up over years. And while building (and painting) they of course play with what they got so far, more often than not stuff that's in cheap start collecting's and things where some people on dakka say: "this is unplayable, this unit is shelved, nobody plays it". Yes they do. People have their models painted and want to see them on the table, rules (or strength of rules) don't matter.
Yes, sometimes due to rules changes you realize you can play a competitve list after you've built up an army for years. And maybe you do that for some time, but usually people don't play the same list more than a couple of times because things get boring then. I don't think I've ever played the exact same list twice outside of some little events where we played 4 games on one day. And I believe that's actually the common approach to 40K.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


This is honestly hilarious. It really is.

Your close mindedness blinds you.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Your workarounds are exactly the problem I've been talking about. Instead of making GW "game designers" do their jobs properly, we got people like you still defending their buying of absurdly expensive codices because "rules are a bonus" to you. This is exactly the white knight behavior that keeps the power creep going. "Oh don't worry, just because your TAC army is bad just buy some other models". "Oh your TAC army is too good, buy some other models". This isn't about skew lists, this is the fact some fluff armies are literally broken compared to other armies.

You are hilarious. People doing gaming DIY, talking out their own games, applying workarounds and making them work for them is the problem? I've heard it all now.

Ridiculous.

I expect the game designers to make great models and lore. I appreciate some form of game, especially something immersive, but I appreciate with this medium, there are only so many things that can be captured and there will be sharp edges. Rules are like the seasons. They change. They're malleable.ill also add the caveat the rules set doesn't have to be brilliant or even good in its entirety. If there's enough of it that's good or clever or engaging or even good enough and I'm able to work with it, I'll take that and consider the designers job acceptable. I approach all ttgs i play with the understanding that some assembly is required at the front end. Gw games are no different.

I'm no white Knight. I'm a realist. Its not 'white Knight behaviour' to enjoy the lore and world building, its not white Knight behaviour to enjoy buyimg models I like to paint and play with. Its not white Knight behaviour to enjoy the painting and hobbying of gw stuff and its not white Knight behaviour to home brew and talk it out with the other guy. Like I said, your whole viewpoint is skewed, ts like anything that isn't projecting bile at gw is your enemy too.

While I quite enjoy the 'specialist games', and boxed games, especially shadespire, newcromunda and warcey (alongside the classic lotr sbg)I'm.not blind to their faults. I also have plenty problems with gw's rules for 40k. At best, 40ks rules are a clunky awkward and barely functional mess.

I'd love to see gw write cleaner rules. While I'm happy to work around the issues at my end, I'd love to see better balance. Plenty things gw can do. As a player, there's plenty things I can do too. Both sides of the exact same coin. I simply choose to focus on where my efforts will actually yield results.

And yeah it's a pain that some fluff armies are broken and others are trash. But I've got news for you - that's ttgs in general. I've never played a game where that wasn't the case.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


If you're going to take the approach you keep preaching you don't even need the rules as you're always modifying them to YOUR liking. Just randomly throw around some dice and see who rolled better.

There's a difference between homebrewimg and game building and throwing around some dice, bjt I wouldn't expect a black Knight suchbas yourself to notice or care. this absurd projection of yours doesn't devalue the approach that actual works for folks like me.

Rules are fundamentally resolution mechanisms, they're not god. I'll use them if I have them especially if they come associated for models I've bought. If they work, great. If they don't, I'll.tweak.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


Also I think it's hilarious nobody has been able to answer the question I've been asking: if a brand new game came out of nowhere with a different IP but had the same exact rules and prices, would you buy it or give it a good review?

Trap question.

Depends on the models and the lore is the honest answer. If the models are great, and the lore us engaging we'd give the game a go. If we came up against rules issues we'd talk it out and make it work.for ourselves. And then I'd say to folks like you ww enjoy playing it, this is how we make it work etc.

@Slayerfan,

I tend to mess up multi-quotes, so I just copy-pasted your question. You asked the question: "if a brand new game came out of nowhere with a different IP but had the same exact rules and prices, would you buy it or give it a good review?"

Parking what the point of the question is, I guess it would depend on the IP? Flames of War, at its heart, has much of 40K's underlying design. IP is very important to tabletop miniatures wargames because we are investing money, time and energy into the models. I think at some level the IP has to speak to us. Game mechanics matter, but they aren't everything. For that its worth, I am happier with the 40K game design direction in 8th/9th than I was for the 3rd to 7th Editions.

People bring up games with purportedly superior game design such as Infinity. Don't know much about it, but if you are looking for the miniatures they are in my FLGS' 50% bargain bin under the WMH stuff. Lots of "perfect" games out there that don't get much table time.

Is the crux of this thread the tension between "fluff" and "crunch.?" Some want their lists to be fluffy and crunchy and get mad when their vision of their fluffy force loses on the tabletop? Fluffy is highly subjective, especially in a made-up universe like 40K. Somebody could call their Jan 2020 Ironhands list with two Leviathans "fluffy." My current Deathwing list is quite fluffy. Its also terrifyingly effective against some opponents right now. And it would have fallen apart in Jan 2020 in a half-ways competitive game (I took 15 Deathwing Terminators to a tourney in Dec 2019).

Is it wrong that we adjust our lists to the situation? Tabletop wargaming is a social interaction. A little emotional intelligence before/during/after a game can do wonders for a gaming community. Some honest communication can also helpful: "I am prepping for a tourney next month" or "I would like to try out a themed list. Here are the parameters? Up for a game?"

GW wrote the rules, but its up to the community to be, well, a community.

 Gert wrote:
Taking Dakka posts as a signifier of human nature is about as unscientific as saying Earth is the centre of the universe. You have a bunch of outliers who don't represent the majority of people in the hobby declaring "casual gaming isn't real" and taking it as fact. To repeat what someone else has already said, most Warhammer players will never post on a forum.

I can't agree with that. When you see 60+ pages of threads of why marines are killing the game at 58% win rate, and then you see the same people defend armies with 78% win rates, as "maybe a bit over the power curve", you get a great lesson about human psyche. I was getting more and more angry each year, not understanding why the entire community doesn't riot at GW to fix GK. And then I saw what happened to my friends primaris IH, who over a night went from someone laughted at with a bad army, to that power gamer you should never play against. And suddenly I understood that this is just like school. People from other deperaments do not care about you, your events, your funding, if you have a good time or a chance to go to regionals. they only care about their own stuff. And GW games are the same, as long as their stuff is good people are okey with the game. The games stops being okey, if their army suddenly becomes weaker. But you are right, most people do not post on forums, unless it is the sell army section of a local forum or facebook group.

Some honest communication can also helpful: "I am prepping for a tourney next month" or "I would like to try out a themed list. Here are the parameters? Up for a game?"

GW wrote the rules, but its up to the community to be, well, a community.

And all of this works only in places where people have the option to change stuff, and not just struggle to buy the 2000pts and then stop buying stuff. Or they are people 20-30 years older then you, and making them do anything has an exactly zero chance to happen, specially when they know that an edition later there will be one or two of all the new players left playing the game. Probably fewer after another edition. Right now of the people that started w40k at my old store, that still play are 4 people including me, and out of those 4 only 2 play on a regular basis. But they had a huge help in the form of both their father and older brother playing at the old store too.

 CommanderWalrus wrote:
One thing I've noticed on these forums and pretty much everywhere else people discuss 40k is that the conversation is pretty much universally slanted to a more competitive side.
Why is this? IMO the game is more fun played more casually, and it seems many people share this opinion, but yet 90% of the discussion is on how to win at all costs. Whenever a new codex is out the discussion is heavily weighted on how strong it is and not how fun it is. The 9th edition Necron Codex comes to mind since while it doesn't have the most competitive options, it is a blast to play for more casual games since it has so many cool and unique options. But I see almost no one talk about some of these things because it doesn't relate to "meta". Any idea why this is, in general?

Because there's nothing worth talking about about noncompetitive play.

Competitive play is approached as problem to be solved, which thus prompts discussions, whether about balance or about how to solve it. Casual play isn't, and if you approach it that way it with intent to be optimal and win it becomes competitive and no longer casual.

Also, like what is there to say to others about casual play anyway? "I had the great game where I exploded my enemy's land raider and it was cool and cinematic and I used my imagination!" "Yeah, great, cool story lady, this affects my 40k experience so profoundly and I care so much about how your personal games go and your story in your head of your little plastic people."


And we do share casual play things sometimes, where its either funny, or germane to an extent discussion about the game.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 CommanderWalrus wrote:
One thing I've noticed on these forums and pretty much everywhere else people discuss 40k is that the conversation is pretty much universally slanted to a more competitive side.
Why is this? IMO the game is more fun played more casually, and it seems many people share this opinion, but yet 90% of the discussion is on how to win at all costs. Whenever a new codex is out the discussion is heavily weighted on how strong it is and not how fun it is. The 9th edition Necron Codex comes to mind since while it doesn't have the most competitive options, it is a blast to play for more casual games since it has so many cool and unique options. But I see almost no one talk about some of these things because it doesn't relate to "meta". Any idea why this is, in general?

Because there's nothing worth talking about about noncompetitive play.

Competitive play is approached as problem to be solved, which thus prompts discussions, whether about balance or about how to solve it. Casual play isn't, and if you approach it that way it with intent to be optimal and win it becomes competitive and no longer casual.

Also, like what is there to say to others about casual play anyway? "I had the great game where I exploded my enemy's land raider and it was cool and cinematic and I used my imagination!" "Yeah, great, cool story lady, this affects my 40k experience so profoundly and I care so much about how your personal games go and your story in your head of your little plastic people."

I don't know about you, but I could probably type pages about how best to achieve particular common fluff-scenarios using custom mission mechanics.

I disagree. I'd rather read about people's campaigns, personal army background, player-made characters, and stories developed around games than "THIS ARMY IS OP!!" "GW HAS RUINED MY LIFE ". Your Dudes is IMO one of the most important aspects of the hobby and I've found that when people have a connection to their collection beyond "this unit will win me games", the collective experience is always better.

^Yeah there are still problems that can be "solved", however they are more niche and contextual, and therefore less universal. Some would say less relevant, but I wouldn't be too quick to write off the problem space altogether.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I've been calling 9th Edition "Tournament Edition" since it came out, as everything appears to have been built and catered to the tournament/event crowd.

I mean, they even talked up all the groups - all event running groups heavily into the tournament scene - that helped them test this edition (yet somehow they kept the Codices from them). It's why the missions are all so dull and are all the same. It's why the scoring system now mirrors tournament scoring. It's why Maelstrom is gone (WD betas notwithstanding).

This is an edition built from the ground up to be for tournaments by the people who play in them.

That's funny, because I've been referring to it as the Narrative edition.

I've been wanting games to grow from small skirmish to full scale apocalypse battles since 1989. That happens now, with changes to army composition (detachment limits), table size, objectives and bespoke missions for all sizes of game for the first time in 34 years.

I've been waiting for a way that troops can earn promotions- not just experience, but actual unit changes in game- like starting as a captain and growing into a chapter master. Once again, for the first time in 34 years, that's possible.

I've been waiting for relics linked to specific histories and geograpihies in specific thatres of war that are discoverable in game and have a lasting effect upon the army. Once again, something that finally exists after 34 years.

If you choose not to play Crusade, I really don't want to hear your opinion on whether or not 9th succeeds when it comes to narrative play. And by "Play Crusade" I don't mean forcing yourself to engage in a single game for the sake of confirming your bias and then moving on; I mean starting with a 25PL force and growing it to 150-200 PL by engaging in ongoing campaign play using bespoke Crusade content from BRB, dexes and flashpoints and mission packs. I can almost guarantee you that your ideas about whether or not 9th supports narrative play will change.

We have never had this degree of support for narrative escalation and progression. If you choose not to use the tools, that's fine. But to claim they don't exist because you refuse to use them is more than a little disingenuous and totally off base.

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Because there's nothing worth talking about about noncompetitive play.

Competitive play is approached as problem to be solved, which thus prompts discussions, whether about balance or about how to solve it. Casual play isn't, and if you approach it that way it with intent to be optimal and win it becomes competitive and no longer casual.

Also, like what is there to say to others about casual play anyway? "I had the great game where I exploded my enemy's land raider and it was cool and cinematic and I used my imagination!" "Yeah, great, cool story lady, this affects my 40k experience so profoundly and I care so much about how your personal games go and your story in your head of your little plastic people."


And we do share casual play things sometimes, where its either funny, or germane to an extent discussion about the game.

I disagree. I'd rather read about people's campaigns, personal army background, player-made characters, and stories developed around games than "THIS ARMY IS OP!!" "GW HAS RUINED MY LIFE ". Your Dudes is IMO one of the most important aspects of the hobby and I've found that when people have a connection to their collection beyond "this unit will win me games", the collective experience is always better.

We've got a whole Proposed Rules subforum.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 CommanderWalrus wrote:
One thing I've noticed on these forums and pretty much everywhere else people discuss 40k is that the conversation is pretty much universally slanted to a more competitive side.
Why is this? IMO the game is more fun played more casually, and it seems many people share this opinion, but yet 90% of the discussion is on how to win at all costs. Whenever a new codex is out the discussion is heavily weighted on how strong it is and not how fun it is. The 9th edition Necron Codex comes to mind since while it doesn't have the most competitive options, it is a blast to play for more casual games since it has so many cool and unique options. But I see almost no one talk about some of these things because it doesn't relate to "meta". Any idea why this is, in general?

Because there's nothing worth talking about about noncompetitive play.

Competitive play is approached as problem to be solved, which thus prompts discussions, whether about balance or about how to solve it. Casual play isn't, and if you approach it that way it with intent to be optimal and win it becomes competitive and no longer casual.

Also, like what is there to say to others about casual play anyway? "I had the great game where I exploded my enemy's land raider and it was cool and cinematic and I used my imagination!" "Yeah, great, cool story lady, this affects my 40k experience so profoundly and I care so much about how your personal games go and your story in your head of your little plastic people."


And we do share casual play things sometimes, where its either funny, or germane to an extent discussion about the game.

I could have pages and pages of discussion on different special / proposed rules for unique subfactions (player-created of course) like relics, stratagems, warlord traits, doctrines, even specialize unit datasheets.

I could spend a ton of time comparing notes about characters and how they might react in a given scenario between players - no two Slaanesh daemons are alike, you know, so my warlord and your warlord would probably handle the same problem in different ways. Like what?

I could probably talk for ages about ways to convert unique characters or armies out of the greater game-o-sphere, using 3rd party models and bits.

I could expound endlessly on inspirations for armies and different themes and what fits a "theme" best - e.g. if I wanted to play an army themed around the 501st from Star Wars, what army is best? etc.

EDIT:
And the proposed rules subform is nice, but I am talking about something slightly more formal and official than that. Not just "here's what me and my group play or here is some theoryhammer about a rule I am considering" but rather like "here is the entire datasheet for my special character, feel free to use her in your games because she is a daemon and can be anywhere" or whatever.

...You can do that in the Proposed Rules forum, I do all the time. Just the other day I posted a full datasheet for a couple Necromunda gangs in 40k because I love to use them as proxy guard units in my inquisitorial weirdos army and its more fun to make some simple rules for their unique rules.

 the_scotsman wrote:
...You can do that in the Proposed Rules forum, I do all the time. Just the other day I posted a full datasheet for a couple Necromunda gangs in 40k because I love to use them as proxy guard units in my inquisitorial weirdos army and its more fun to make some simple rules for their unique rules.

That forum at least locally is considered largely a joke because it's not "official".

This obsession with "officialdom" exists because competitive play is the gold standard. Trying to shift the perception of the world off of competitive play to casual play would make that perception less severe - and is exactly what this thread is about.

Competitive play is the current gold standard. Yes, us fluffbunnies could go play in the silly corner where people don't have to take us seriously, it's true.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
...You can do that in the Proposed Rules forum, I do all the time. Just the other day I posted a full datasheet for a couple Necromunda gangs in 40k because I love to use them as proxy guard units in my inquisitorial weirdos army and its more fun to make some simple rules for their unique rules.

That forum at least locally is considered largely a joke because it's not "official".

This obsession with "officialdom" exists because competitive play is the gold standard. Trying to shift the perception of the world off of competitive play to casual play would make that perception less severe - and is exactly what this thread is about.

Competitive play is the current gold standard. Yes, us fluffbunnies could go play in the silly corner where people don't have to take us seriously, it's true.

Which is why I really wish GW would make characters and units more customizable.

There should be barely any unique characters-Calgar, for instance, should be a specific load-out of Ultramarines Chapter Master. Kharne, specific Chaos Lord load-out. Swarmlord, specific Hive Tyrant load-out. The Primarchs can stay unique, but whether or not they should've been introduced is another question entirely.

Why not a Crusade forum?

 Blndmage wrote:
Why not a Crusade forum?

Ask in the Nuts and Bolts forum.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
...You can do that in the Proposed Rules forum, I do all the time. Just the other day I posted a full datasheet for a couple Necromunda gangs in 40k because I love to use them as proxy guard units in my inquisitorial weirdos army and its more fun to make some simple rules for their unique rules.

That forum at least locally is considered largely a joke because it's not "official".

This obsession with "officialdom" exists because competitive play is the gold standard. Trying to shift the perception of the world off of competitive play to casual play would make that perception less severe - and is exactly what this thread is about.

Competitive play is the current gold standard. Yes, us fluffbunnies could go play in the silly corner where people don't have to take us seriously, it's true.

Which is why I really wish GW would make characters and units more customizable.

There should be barely any unique characters-Calgar, for instance, should be a specific load-out of Ultramarines Chapter Master. Kharne, specific Chaos Lord load-out. Swarmlord, specific Hive Tyrant load-out. The Primarchs can stay unique, but whether or not they should've been introduced is another question entirely.

^Exalt like 1000 times!

I hated when chapter/army specific rules began to get more "special character locked", and character/army customization is where a bunch of the fun is at.

Oh hey . . . Here we are talking about Chaos 3.5 again all of a sudden. Character building in that book was an absolute blast.