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Hankovitch wrote:
GW's terrain is fine, it's just limited in aesthetic scope. They have very little terrain that isn't "Imperial city ruins" and "Imperial industrial machinery."

If you want an interesting and attractive table (as opposed to "Sector Platonically-Balanced Tournament Field"), it's still up to the players to modify/diversify their table with crafted terrain pieces, 3rd-party kits, and so on.

The problem is, a lot of the terrain sets sold by GW do basically fething nothing in GW's own ruleset. Let's see, what GW terrain have I painted up since 9th ed changed the terrain system..

Sector Mechanicus: This terrain is worthless. It grants Dense Cover, but due to how Dense Cover is worded (any single model in the target unit that can be spotted out without the sight line intersecting the Dense terrain piece negates the -1 to hit) the spindly girders and occasional small cylindrical pillars almost never grant the Dense -1 to hit in an actual game.

Also, the platforms are 6" off the ground, which means most units that can practically get on them require their whole move to do so and most will have to advance as well. Since objsctives can't be placed on terrain, and LOS is so easy to achieve there will never be much of an advantage to being up there, so the large platforms are effectively pointless as well in-game

Zone Mortalis: There simply isn't any part of the 9th ed terrain ruleset that works with the Zone Mortalis terrain. It will either do nothing at all (if you just give it, say, Light and Heavy and Defensible, as its not tall enough to be Obscuring) if you rule each piece as an individual terrain 'entity' per the rules, or, if you rule the whole giant structure as one big terrain piece, it will also do nothing at all because as soon as you enter a terrain piece, you remove the rules from it.

Eldar Webway Portal, ork "Speed Freeks" boxed terrain junkyards and Mekboy Workshop: These are useless. They are small decorations you can scatter around the table to do basically nothing to impact the game.

 Sim-Life wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:



My sisters can now take Penitent Oaths and redeem themselves; they can become living saints and they can consecrate holy sites on the battlefield. Never before has any of this been possible.

Big asterisk there. I think you need to go back to playing Matched 2000pts games for a few months.

Nah. I know what makes me happy, and I'm content to just keep doing that. I get it- you're saying that the diversification I have discussed in my quote applies ONLY in Crusade, and for those who choose NOT to play Crusade (or perhaps they just can't find people to play it with) don't get to experience that. Fair point.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Furthermore, 8th was the first edition where Order of Our Martyred Lady didn't use exactly the same rules on the battlefield as any other order.

Okay so how does that change how they play compared to other armies? Or do they still just shoot the other guy till they die then hang about next to objectives hoping they kill more stuff than they do?

I think implying that all armies fight the same because moving, shooting and charging are phases of the game that are shared by all armies is a bit disingenuous?

First off, it's another standard to which other games are not held.

Second, it excludes so much of what happens in this game, that it isn't really an accurate measure of what constitutes an army's identity. Kinda like saying "All human beings are identical, because they all have arms, legs and heads."

Oh, and also let's not forget the new kill team terrain! Fantastic, gw is making the kind if terrain that's mandatory for their game! Big L-shaped walls, but, oh wait, 4.25-4.5" tall, WHOOPS, also full of tiny holes, WHOOPS ITS MORE USELESS TABLE DECORATION!!!

PenitentJake wrote:


I think implying that all armies fight the same because moving, shooting and charging are phases of the game that are shared by all armies is a bit disingenuous?

First off, it's another standard to which other games are not held.

Second, it excludes so much of what happens in this game, that it isn't really an accurate measure of what constitutes an army's identity. Kinda like saying "All human beings are identical, because they all have arms, legs and heads."

40k's play variation comes entirely from in game bonuses to mitigate dice rolls and all factions follow the same style of rules (+/-1, rerolls). And no, people expect other games to differentiate their factions as well. Its just that 40k seems to approach balance as if the game were chess. If everyone is roughly the same, then it's balanced right?

The most technologically advanced civilization in the galaxy can only make a laser slightly better than the archaic technology used and mass produced by the Imperium. And only if it doesn't move, in which case it gets worse? I have to wonder if you've actually played any other games if you think they don't differentiate factions. Good luck trying to play Khador like they were Cygnar in Warmachine.

I keep bringing up Flames of War in these discussions because it’s an incredibly similar game to most of 40k’s legacy core rules mechanically. It has move, shoot, fight, and morale phases. In each of those phases every army regardless of faction or composition does those things.

However a panzergrenadier list plays extremely differently to a Soviet conscript list. Pzrgrens are about maneuverability, using supporting fire to pin enemy units while mechanized infantry embark and disembark to breakpoints across the battlefield to score objectives and dislodge the enemy.

Conscripts on the other hand, lumber forward or more likely, don’t move at all because they’re extremely easy to hit due to their poor quality as troops. So they either try and bluntly swarm you or dig in and try to outlast the enemy by having more bodies than they have bullets.

I as a pzrgren player would need to learn how to play the conscript list before being successful with it. Note that that entails learning when and how to commit units, what to do with reserves to bolster the core list’s weaknesses etc. The point is that while there is always a move, shoot, fight phase, I don’t always want to move (I’ll be easier to hit), I don’t always want to shoot (if I do, I can’t dig in and get an extra cover save), and I don’t always want to fight (defensive fire is deadly, different context for 40k but the point stands).

In 40k, to learn how to play another army the vast majority of my learning curve is going to be memorizing new abilities and overlapping rules. It will have almost nothing to do with learning how to interact with the tabletop battle space. I will still be moving forward, shooting, and charging if the fight is favourable.

Plus, Crusade doesn't actually make your army play differently.

It's a Progression System - you will play Bloody Rose the same whether in 2k matched or in a Crusade. Just the crusade one accumulates experience to get better at doing exactly the same thing.

And sure individual units change (repentia can redeem themselves or whatever). But the army isn't necessarily more narrative for it - it still plays exactly the same way, still has moments that are narratively consistent and some that don't make any sense at all.

It isn't like Crusade is played fundamentally differently than 2k matched on the table in any given game, except that there's a gakload more rules to remember.

And GW, as a reminder, explicitly DESIGNED crusade to be that way, as it was sold as being able to play against 2k matched armies without much effort by either player to change things up.

 Sim-Life wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Furthermore, 8th was the first edition where Order of Our Martyred Lady didn't use exactly the same rules on the battlefield as any other order.

Okay so how does that change how they play compared to other armies? Or do they still just shoot the other guy till they die then hang about next to objectives hoping they kill more stuff than they do?

What's your point? Your question could be as easily describing the Axis & Allies game I'm playing right now.
My Japanese are sitting on Hawaii after shooting the U.S. off it & hoping to kill anything that comes to retake it.

PenitentJake wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

I would think that a big issue with 9th is that it is not really fit for the purpose GW wants to use it for, rendering any positives fairly mute.
It basically ignores a good portion of the army’s faction identity and fantasy, leaves out huge portions of its design to be written and rewritten again and again over new codexes.

This needs a bit of clarification.

First, I'm talking only 9th ed dexes.

So if by ignoring faction identity, you mean ignoring fluff text that never made a difference on the table, I can get behind you. What's more, I mourn the loss of this material from 9th ed dexes as much as most Dakkanaughts. I was particularly disappointed, for example, with the lack of a galactic map in the Sister's dex showing the locations of all of the Orders of the Sisters.

But in terms of having a faction identity on the table, represented by unique combinations of rules for factions and sub-factions, I feel that no other edition has ever come close to 8th, and that 9th raised the bar even higher for faction/ sub-faction identity- especially if you go down the Crusade rabbit hole.

Space Marines have been spoiled with unique sub-faction content since second edition, and other editions have allowed some factions to experience that too. To my knowledge, 8th was the first edition to offer unique sub-faction rules content for every faction in the game, and again, 9th raised that bar even higher.

There's so much faction/ sub-faction identity via rules content expressing itself on tables these days that one of the most common complaints is that there's too much of it. While I personally love it, because I'm not actually a wargamer at heart, but more of an RPGer/ CCGer, I can actually understand why those with different priorities sometimes feel overwhelmed by "bloat".

I was talking about the core rules, and how they need for lots of faction and rule bloat to get to where a good core rule system would be.
As well as ignoring that army with alternative defences need support within the core rules if they want it to really be a good system.
It’s a bloat issue, with 40k having lots of little issue that make the whole thing kinda awful rather than any one big issue.

ccs wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Furthermore, 8th was the first edition where Order of Our Martyred Lady didn't use exactly the same rules on the battlefield as any other order.

Okay so how does that change how they play compared to other armies? Or do they still just shoot the other guy till they die then hang about next to objectives hoping they kill more stuff than they do?

What's your point? Your question could be as easily describing the Axis & Allies game I'm playing right now.
My Japanese are sitting on Hawaii after shooting the U.S. off it & hoping to kill anything that comes to retake it.

The game loop of axis and allies is not to win dice offs though, it’s the strategic application of resources restricted by movement mechanics. You’re describing one micro (but frequent) aspect of gameplay and using it to define the whole game, which isn’t accurate.

The movement mechanic that restricts my application of 40k resources is the movement of my models off the table XD

 Las wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Furthermore, 8th was the first edition where Order of Our Martyred Lady didn't use exactly the same rules on the battlefield as any other order.

Okay so how does that change how they play compared to other armies? Or do they still just shoot the other guy till they die then hang about next to objectives hoping they kill more stuff than they do?

What's your point? Your question could be as easily describing the Axis & Allies game I'm playing right now.
My Japanese are sitting on Hawaii after shooting the U.S. off it & hoping to kill anything that comes to retake it.

The game loop of axis and allies is not to win dice offs though, it’s the strategic application of resources restricted by movement mechanics. You’re describing one micro (but frequent) aspect of gameplay and using it to define the whole game, which isn’t accurate.

Blah blah blah.
Your anti-40k description still perfectly matches exactly what I've been playing all day.
Move unit(s) x distance to objective. Roll dice hoping for A) target #, B) trade better than my opponent.
And it'll perfectly describe nearly every other wargame be it chit based, tiny plastic figures on set board, 15mm stuff,, 40k scale, etc.

ccs wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Furthermore, 8th was the first edition where Order of Our Martyred Lady didn't use exactly the same rules on the battlefield as any other order.

Okay so how does that change how they play compared to other armies? Or do they still just shoot the other guy till they die then hang about next to objectives hoping they kill more stuff than they do?

What's your point? Your question could be as easily describing the Axis & Allies game I'm playing right now.
My Japanese are sitting on Hawaii after shooting the U.S. off it & hoping to kill anything that comes to retake it.

Having never played Axis & Allies I couldn't tell you. But to use games I have played as an example, in Warmahordes Khador plays differently from Circle who play differently from Cyriss etc.

Khador is all about tanking damage and smashing face. Everything is slow, heavily armoured and hits like a truck, but they lack utility as a faction.

Circle are fast and die in a stiff breeze but they have a lot of positioning tricks for obscuring their units, teleporting around and generally out manoeuvreing opponents to get to the rear of models.

Cyriss is an army of clockwork robots and relies on synergy and almost everything in the army is a construct. Order of activation is INCREDIBLY important because they don't benefit from the Power Up rule to generate focus to fuel their warjacks. Instead when a warjack uses a focus it can pass that focus onto another warjack. You need to plan your turn carefully because one mistake can mess up your whole turn. Their warjacks also don't have their own MAT/RAT (WS/BS) and use the stat of the armies leader. Each Cyriss leader also has a unique ability it passes onto all warjacks.

If you play Khador and decide to try Circle and play it the same way you played Khador you'll have a very bad time because you'll hit like a pillow and die quickly. If you play Khador and move onto Cyriss you're going to have a lot of bad turns and focus issues because the Cyriss turn is so rigid in how it plays out. This is in contrast to 40k where the only real difference between factions are minor army wide rules like miracle dice, or synapse or resurrection protocals whose only function is a small mitigation of something. I can easily switch between all 7 of my 40k armies without really changing my style of play much, whereas with the Warmahordes factions if I went a while without playing them I'd need a few warm up games to jog my memory and shake the rust off (for Cyriss especially).

I suppose I'm trying to say 40k doesn't have any faction where the way they play is a consideration to how how you enact your turn. Because everything is bland.

Imagine if Necrons played like Cyriss where the stats of your units was based on the HQ and required you to activate in a specific order, getting bonuses if you follow a hierarchy of nobility so by the end of your turn, if you did everything right your Overlord is an absolute monster. Or if tyranids were able to use synapse to shuffle the stats of the units around at the start of a turn to adapt to the opponent. And I don't mean a measily +/-1 to something, I mean being able to have a Carnifex add some of its attack stat to its strength stat to buff itself or vice verse based on what its attacking or add its attacks to its ranged weapons shots (please do not derail the thread into being about how this would be broken in the current rules, its just an example of how things COULD be).

Something significant that actually makes the game engaging and requires some thought beyond move up and shoot. Damn, I think I made myself dislike 40k more with this post.

Without computer modeling the interactions and variables, 40k is limited in its decision making. An entire game of 40k is like 30-90sec of an actual battle and the amount of decisions made is huge. Modeling them into 5 IGOUGO turns isn't exactly realistic(or as much as 40k could be) but it does a "decent" faximilie.

Boiling 40k down into 5 turns of IGOUGO and saying it is anywhere near representative.(of the fluff)is asinine. Part of the fun of 40k is medieval insanity mixed with futuristic weaponry.

Racerguy180 wrote:
Without computer modeling the interactions and variables, 40k is limited in its decision making. An entire game of 40k is like 30-90sec of an actual battle and the amount of decisions made is huge. Modeling them into 5 IGOUGO turns isn't exactly realistic(or as much as 40k could be) but it does a "decent" faximilie.

Boiling 40k down into 5 turns of IGOUGO and saying it is anywhere near representative.(of the fluff)is asinine. Part of the fun of 40k is medieval insanity mixed with futuristic weaponry.

The decisions don't have to be boring though.

No one said they had to be boring, it's just GW has painted themselves into a corner & see only +/- 1 as the way to create identity on the tabletop.

I gave a chain of command example earlier (I think in this thread) where faction identity is as simple as

"This nation has fire teams in its squads, this nation does not".

That's it. No other rules or anything else.

But the core rules (section vs. team activation, movement, shock/morale, entrenchments) are deep enough to give this distinction meaning, with benefits and drawbacks to both types of organization.

ccs wrote:

 Las wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Furthermore, 8th was the first edition where Order of Our Martyred Lady didn't use exactly the same rules on the battlefield as any other order.

Okay so how does that change how they play compared to other armies? Or do they still just shoot the other guy till they die then hang about next to objectives hoping they kill more stuff than they do?

What's your point? Your question could be as easily describing the Axis & Allies game I'm playing right now.
My Japanese are sitting on Hawaii after shooting the U.S. off it & hoping to kill anything that comes to retake it.

The game loop of axis and allies is not to win dice offs though, it’s the strategic application of resources restricted by movement mechanics. You’re describing one micro (but frequent) aspect of gameplay and using it to define the whole game, which isn’t accurate.

Blah blah blah.
Your anti-40k description still perfectly matches exactly what I've been playing all day.
Move unit(s) x distance to objective. Roll dice hoping for A) target #, B) trade better than my opponent.
And it'll perfectly describe nearly every other wargame be it chit based, tiny plastic figures on set board, 15mm stuff,, 40k scale, etc.

Man, no it doesn’t. Open the axis and allies rule book and tell me how much real estate is devoted to explaining how fights happen vs resource management and movement.

The dice offs are the mechanic used to decide the outcome of strategic decision making, which is the core of the game.

This will likely be my last post on the subject- people get exasperated by me as much as I get exasperated by them- I'm not there yet, and hopefully none of you are either- getting out before it goes that far is an art, and hopefully this isn't a post too far. Neither of us is ever going to change the other's mind- I'm not even sure that's what I'm trying to do because I know it's futile. I read a lot of posts that feel like they over simplify, and I think I'm looking to fill in the blanks sometimes, or to tell the side of the story that a particular post isn't telling.

Either way, here goes- no offense or personal attacks intended:

 Sim-Life wrote:


40k's play variation comes entirely from in game bonuses to mitigate dice rolls and all factions follow the same style of rules (+/-1, rerolls). And no, people expect other games to differentiate their factions as well. Its just that 40k seems to approach balance as if the game were chess. If everyone is roughly the same, then it's balanced right?

Right. So the two forces where every unit is psychic (Ksons, GK) are roughly the same as the factions with no psykers (DE, Tau) right? The Custodes which are lucky to field 30 models are roughly the same as the factions that can build lists with hundreds of models for the same points value. The factions consisting entirely of giant machines are roughly the same as the factions that rely almost entirely upon infantry. The faction where virtually every unit has the capacity for resurrection is roughly the same as every other faction which can't? Ditto on Miracle dice.

Subfaction variation within a faction is less distinct, as it should be; one order of sisters should be more like another order than they are like a different faction, so certainly those variations do seem to be more in line with the minor variations you describe above, and fair enough.

 Sim-Life wrote:

The most technologically advanced civilization in the galaxy can only make a laser slightly better than the archaic technology used and mass produced by the Imperium. And only if it doesn't move, in which case it gets worse? I have to wonder if you've actually played any other games if you think they don't differentiate factions. Good luck trying to play Khador like they were Cygnar in Warmachine.

As mentioned above, their guns might not be much different than the guns other armies used, but almost every unit in the army has the capacity to resurrect, right? And again, you can build the list to augment that uniqueness and lean into it, but if you do it may limit TAC capacity- same way I CAN build a sisters list to absolutely maximize MD, but it comes at a cost.

As for playing other games, I have- I've listed them before. None of the games people typically talk about on Dakka. I came close to trying Warmachine- its range was large and diverse enough to interest me- almost no other game has that. If it doesn't have aliens and robots and preferably daemons too, I'm just not interested. People talk about what a great game Dust is- they're probably right (I love Andy Chambers too), but it doesn't make a lick of difference cuz the model range puts me to sleep. Ditto on Chain of Command (sorry Unit).

But to return to your point about Warmachine not working when you try to play one faction the way you try and play another, I don't think you'd be too successful if you try to play Custodes like Guard, or Ksons like Orks either. Do you? Honestly?

 Las wrote:
I keep bringing up Flames of War in these discussions because it’s an incredibly similar game to most of 40k’s legacy core rules mechanically. It has move, shoot, fight, and morale phases. In each of those phases every army regardless of faction or composition does those things.

However a panzergrenadier list plays extremely differently to a Soviet conscript list. Pzrgrens are about maneuverability, using supporting fire to pin enemy units while mechanized infantry embark and disembark to breakpoints across the battlefield to score objectives and dislodge the enemy.

Conscripts on the other hand, lumber forward or more likely, don’t move at all because they’re extremely easy to hit due to their poor quality as troops. So they either try and bluntly swarm you or dig in and try to outlast the enemy by having more bodies than they have bullets.

I as a pzrgren player would need to learn how to play the conscript list before being successful with it. Note that that entails learning when and how to commit units, what to do with reserves to bolster the core list’s weaknesses etc. The point is that while there is always a move, shoot, fight phase, I don’t always want to move (I’ll be easier to hit), I don’t always want to shoot (if I do, I can’t dig in and get an extra cover save), and I don’t always want to fight (defensive fire is deadly, different context for 40k but the point stands).

In 40k, to learn how to play another army the vast majority of my learning curve is going to be memorizing new abilities and overlapping rules. It will have almost nothing to do with learning how to interact with the tabletop battle space. I will still be moving forward, shooting, and charging if the fight is favourable.

My response to the first part of your post would be similar to my response to Sim above, but I kept you in here because of your last point. There's definitely something to that. Again, I still think it's a bit of an oversimplification, because there ARE big variations- you do have to learn to play differently if you're playing Knights, Hordes, Elites, etc... but the point about MOST of the variations coming from layered rules I think is pretty valid. Well played.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Plus, Crusade doesn't actually make your army play differently.

It's a Progression System - you will play Bloody Rose the same whether in 2k matched or in a Crusade. Just the crusade one accumulates experience to get better at doing exactly the same thing.

And sure individual units change (repentia can redeem themselves or whatever). But the army isn't necessarily more narrative for it - it still plays exactly the same way, still has moments that are narratively consistent and some that don't make any sense at all.

It isn't like Crusade is played fundamentally differently than 2k matched on the table in any given game, except that there's a gakload more rules to remember.

And GW, as a reminder, explicitly DESIGNED crusade to be that way, as it was sold as being able to play against 2k matched armies without much effort by either player to change things up.

Dude, agendas not conferring victory points ABSOLUTELY fundamentally changes the game. In matched, the entire army is pursuing a set of goals; you can certainly delegate which units you send to achieve which goals based on their abilities, but every goal is an army wide goal, and achieving these goals is how you win.

In Crusade, the army has A GOAL, and achieving it is how you win that battle. But in addition to that, individual units within the army have goals of their own; achieving these doesn't help you win the battle at all... But it might help you when the next one, or the one after that. If you can't see or won't acknowledge that profound, fundamental difference, I'm not sure we can have an honest discussion.

Now I get the unwritten elements of your point of view, because you've explained them before. In previous discussions, you've said that if Crusade provided a campaign structure in its core design, that would help to bring greater narrative connectivity between battles and really hammer home the idea of sacrificing a battle to win the war far more than the progression system alone- I don't even entirely disagree (as I've explained before). And I also understand the Chain of Command is one of your favourite games because it does a better job of this.

But ultimately I think GW's decision NOT to define a campaign structure that is THE Crusade campaign structure was wise, because some of us like Map-based, some of us like ladder, and some of us like tree. And there are still others that could be employed as well, because the rules as written leave us free to choose. I'm not trying to hammer my map based campaign idea into a tree campaign because rulez sed so.

I think that a controlling campaign system linked into the core rules would be too limiting, and I think that you almost need to make something that is specific to the background of the campaign you are portraying.

Apple fox wrote:


I was talking about the core rules, and how they need for lots of faction and rule bloat to get to where a good core rule system would be.
As well as ignoring that army with alternative defences need support within the core rules if they want it to really be a good system.
It’s a bloat issue, with 40k having lots of little issue that make the whole thing kinda awful rather than any one big issue.

Thanks for the clarification. And yeah, now that it's here, I can relate and agree- there is NOTHING in the core rules to differentiate one faction from another. I'm not sure why it's important that faction distinctions be in the core rules; I'm not even sure it makes sense in a game that's going to have faction codices anyway.

Ultimately, my point is that the differences exist, and that in previous versions of this game, those differences only existed for some lucky factions. To me, it doesn't make a difference whether they're in the core rules or a dex, especially since the dex is going to exist regardless of which book the distinctions go into.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I gave a chain of command example earlier (I think in this thread) where faction identity is as simple as

"This nation has fire teams in its squads, this nation does not".

That's it. No other rules or anything else.

But the core rules (section vs. team activation, movement, shock/morale, entrenchments) are deep enough to give this distinction meaning, with benefits and drawbacks to both types of organization.

And again, similar response to the one above- now that you've clarified it's important for you for the distinction to be a part of the core rules set, fair enough. Certainly, the rule interaction you describe above is elegant in its simplicity and it would make the faction play differently than others without as many rules as 40k has. You still couldn't pay me enough to play a game of Chain of Command because anything that's going to happen could happen right here in the 21st century, and not one of the models is something that I couldn't see in a history textbook. The game may well be vastly superior from a design standpoint- in fact, let me simplify it for you and say I agree it is superior from a design stand point.

It will still bore me to tears without aliens, robots, daemons, super-soldiers and nuns with guns, so I think I'll stick with what I've got.

@Penitant Jake

Appreciate the response my man. Agree to disagree.

Whats amazing is that a game with robots demons nuns with guns and super space soldiers somehow, incredibly, manages to be worse for creating cool compelling narratives than a game with normal humans with rifles and tanks vs normal humans with rifles and tanks.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or whatever other system already has a 40k rule set moved into it...

Unfortunately the major rules alternative to 40k appears to also love the "supremedy bland core rules, attempt to make up for it with 900 layers of special rules" framework.

I'm trying to get ahold of the Chain of Command rules for warhammer. I have no idea if they're good but at least the activation and terrain systems make sense.

I’m not sure the main barrier will be access to the rules as much as gaining consent from a group of people to play an alternative rule set. If you can get them to agree to try 40k with one page rules or any already existing rule set that already ported 40k then you’ll be fine.

Given how much Unit loves Chain of Command, and some of the good stuff I've heard about it, I'd be willing to try it at least.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:
Just to clarify, I had to move turn one both games. Unless I just passed all my activations and turtled, there was nowhere to fully hide my army beyond meager cover in the deployment zone.

Not moving is a choice. Sprinting with weapons that aren't assault is a choice. Electing to do no damage to do more from a better position later is valid. You may sacrifice primary points depending on the mission, but if you can deny them then it can be worth it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I gave a chain of command example earlier (I think in this thread) where faction identity is as simple as

"This nation has fire teams in its squads, this nation does not".

That's it. No other rules or anything else.

But the core rules (section vs. team activation, movement, shock/morale, entrenchments) are deep enough to give this distinction meaning, with benefits and drawbacks to both types of organization.

I've been reading through the CoC rules. It's pretty neat, but it isn't the same kind of game. Terrain in terms of sighting and effect is pretty similar to 40K aside from move penalties, but then infantry movement is entirely random...

There is zero percent of me that wants to care about how many activations it takes for another crew member to take over for another crew killed. There's 11 tables depending on the vehicle type and number of hits to roll against.

And this table, too...



And this relevant gem...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:
Just to clarify, I had to move turn one both games. Unless I just passed all my activations and turtled, there was nowhere to fully hide my army beyond meager cover in the deployment zone.

Not moving is a choice. Sprinting with weapons that aren't assault is a choice. Electing to do no damage to do more from a better position later is valid. You may sacrifice primary points depending on the mission, but if you can deny them then it can be worth it.

I'm sure I've said this to you before but just because they're choices doesn't make them good or interesting or engaging.
One of the things I really love about most other games is that often at the start of my turn I will sit and look at the board state because I have a wealth of choices open to me and those choices lead to others and they aren't just "move to there, shoot X, if its not dead shoot with something else, repeat".

I mean we can be generous and say you have the decision to use one of the 5 or so strats that are worth using in the early game, so there's an extra decision, even though at end game you basically just automatically save CP to use the reroll strat.

Sure, I won't contest that. Sitting still or shuffling isn't going to be as sexy as fighting. You're still able to set up future moves though, which I think is a fundamental tactic even if it doesn't have the AA feel to it.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Repentia and arcos don't have guns, seraphim are already where I want them to be, I guess the couple 5 woman squads of dominions shoot....

Okay, I feel like you're not getting the point.

So lets take a look at some factions.

The T'au faction identity is based on very strong, long range firepower based on incredibly manoeuvrable battlesuits. They're hard to pin down in melee but when you close the distance they're screwed.

Tyranids are (supposed to be) a horde army, with hundred of little bugs soaking up weapons fire and depleting the opponents ammo to allow the big bugs to wreck stuff unhindered. Key to this is that every single tyranid is a part of a whole and able to flawlessly adapt and change tactics at a moment notice.

Necrons are the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy. Terrifying, ancient, undying robots who's basic guns tear you apart on an atomic level, but they've been in hibernation and a majority haven't woken up yet and when they do they can be plagued by madness if they ever wake up at all.

All of this is reflected by the models of the army moving up, shooting and then sometimes charging.

I disagree that tyranids are suppose to be a horde army. If it is, it is false advetising. Tyranids in 8th and 9th edition are a gunline army. (If you want to justefy it from a fluff perspective after the chaos chasmn (the first time the hive mind actually got hurt) the kronos are focused on shooting, because they loose to much materials in a melee fight against daemons.)

Tyranids do not work as a horde army. Play them as shooty. False advetising.

 Niiai wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Repentia and arcos don't have guns, seraphim are already where I want them to be, I guess the couple 5 woman squads of dominions shoot....

Okay, I feel like you're not getting the point.

So lets take a look at some factions.

The T'au faction identity is based on very strong, long range firepower based on incredibly manoeuvrable battlesuits. They're hard to pin down in melee but when you close the distance they're screwed.

Tyranids are (supposed to be) a horde army, with hundred of little bugs soaking up weapons fire and depleting the opponents ammo to allow the big bugs to wreck stuff unhindered. Key to this is that every single tyranid is a part of a whole and able to flawlessly adapt and change tactics at a moment notice.

Necrons are the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy. Terrifying, ancient, undying robots who's basic guns tear you apart on an atomic level, but they've been in hibernation and a majority haven't woken up yet and when they do they can be plagued by madness if they ever wake up at all.

All of this is reflected by the models of the army moving up, shooting and then sometimes charging.

I disagree that tyranids are suppose to be a horde army. If it is, it is false advetising. Tyranids in 8th and 9th edition are a gunline army. (If you want to justefy it from a fluff perspective after the chaos chasmn (the first time the hive mind actually got hurt) the kronos are focused on shooting, because they loose to much materials in a melee fight against daemons.)

Tyranids do not work as a horde army. Play them as shooty. False advetising.

This is because Games Workshop has purposefully devalued every light infantry unit in the game in order to make them not automatically better than elite infantry choices.

if the narrative you want to tell with your...anything smaller than a Space Marine isn't 'boy oh boy, wasnt it exciting how the squad of Dire Avengers you spent 30 hours building and painting hid behind a wall and bravely waved a banner for 3 turns before something moved around the corner and zorped them out of existence' then there's no point in trying to tell it.

"But muh take too long for da horde player to move dere modellllzzzzzz" yes great fantastic here's the thing buddy most of us don't actually love having to buy an extra 500$ of figures to play the game. I'd be perfectly 100% fine with fielding the same number of genestealer cultists as you field space marines, and perfectly fine with your space marines getting to scythe them down en masse....as long as YOU'D be OK with them being basically a revolving door of continuously respawning little zerglets that get to grind you down by attrition.