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 LiveForTheSwarm wrote:

Nevermind, just seen your profile. Portage La Prairie? That's not a terrible drive come on now... Just make a day of it to make it worth it, i'd agree that driving for an hour for a single game wouldn't be worth it but you could make it worth your while!

Its only a terrible drive after a snowfall. I don't know of any good stores though, I'm making a trip into a few I saw on google this weekend to buy some stuff and check them out.

 LiveForTheSwarm wrote:
Our FLGS hates allies and just refuses to even acknowledge that rule exists, so again, a difference of FLGS. Maybe you all should just move here? lol A lot of your problems will disappear

so you are not actually playing 6th edition but some arbitrary sub set of your own rules.

so you took the product and changed it, bravo. I basicly pushed for something like this earlier in the thread.

Only, do you not see the hypocracy in what you just said?

"THE GAME IS FINE IF YOU CHANGE THE RULES"

so us whiny brats just need to change the rules, but GW is fine... I just don't follow this logic.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
IMO a lot of problems in 40k (certainly not all) could be fixed with the reintroduction of "requires opponents consent". Then we could have a nice simple ruleset and simple well defined armies, and if people want to have their fluffy games with a hero who wipes out entire armies with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse, they can do that too... with their opponent's consent

You can't play any kind of game without your opponent's consent.

Reasonable people understand that and make compromises to achieve a fun result for everyone involved.

Explicitly requiring consent would lead to donkey caves insisting I can't use my Tyranid Prime, or you your Tactical Marines, then there would have to be an official list of what is or isn't acceptable, which already exists in the form of codexes that are actually part of the problem. Thus the argument becomes circular.

Barfolomew wrote:

 LiveForTheSwarm wrote:
I find that expectation to be way too high... How can you expect a game with so many different factions/styles/profiles to reach a point of total balance?

For one, the amount of randomness in the game removes player control from aspects of the game which creates uphill or downhill battles based on single dice rolls. Randomness also makes balance extremely hard because if one side rolls really well and the other rolls poorly, the otherwise balanced game can become one sided quickly, turning the game into setup, roll a couple dice for important stuff, loose/win the rolls, pack up and go home.

Secondly, the game has been more balanced in the past, which sets precedent. If the game as always a giant mess with loads of imbalance where the game was decided prior to setup, then people may not have the expectation of balanced fights. It also doesn't help that others have done it better, balancing not only factions, but diverse game mechanics between armies. WarmaHordes has 10 factions with two different game mechanics and from what I can tell is pretty balanced.

Lastly, instead of trying to make balance better, they introduced both Allies and Forgeworld, jumping the number of armies to balance from 15 (11 really, maybe 9) to like 105+ combinations to balance. GW can't throw their hands up in the air about how hard it is to balance 15 armies and then add in Allies increasing the "armies" substantially.

Dude, you're forgetting the biggest point here, other companies seem to have no problem whatsoever achieving a reasonable level of balance with just as many options as 40k.

I should not be at fault for expecting the industry leader, who is charging a ton for their rules where most others are cheap or free, to be able to do at least as well as the little guys forcing their way into the market.

I think a big problem is that they have upped the number of models you need to field for a "reasonable" force, changing the concept of 40k from a larger skirmish to something more like an actual war.

I have acquired a few old issues of White Dwarf, both for nostalgia and because the issues have what is IMO two of the best articles ever to grace the pages of that magazine: the original Tale of Four Gamers, and Stillmania: Questing for the Grail. In issue 219, which was April 1998, there is a battle report for 2nd edition 40K with Blood Angels vs. Eldar, to feature the then-new Fire Prism grav-tank. This battle was 2,000 points. Roughly translating the Blood Angel army to 6th edition rules (accounting for some things that no longer are allowed, such as mixing and matching weapons in an Assault Squad), that 2,000 point army came to approximately 1,270 points in the current edition. The Eldar army came to approximately 1,207 points in 6th edition. Keep that in mind - these forces were 2,000 points in 2nd edition and were typical of the higher-end of battles (when I played at least most 40K games were around 1,500 points, which was also the size for the Grand Tournaments at the time). The army compositions were:

Blood Angels (2E)
Captain
Librarian
Techmarine
5 Terminators (mixed assault weapons per 2E)
2x 5-man Assault Squads (mixed weapons per 2E)
10-man Tactical Squad with Meltagun + Heavy Bolter (fielded as Combat Squads)
5-man Scout Squad w/Heavy Bolter
Dreadnought w/Multi-melta and Powerfist (per 2E)
Predator w/Autocannon and 2x Heavy Bolters
Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta

Eldar
Farseer
Warlock (per 2E)
22 Guardians (fielded as three squads of 5 and one squad of 7 per 2E)
6 Scouts (Rangers in 6E)
5 Wraithguard
6 Jetbikes
Fire Prism
2x Falcons
2x Vypers (one with Lascannon/Bright Lance)

Therein lies the issue. you need more figures now, which also equates to spending more cash on a battle-ready force, as well as shifting the focus of the game to be larger battles instead of smaller skirmishes.

I think they need to go back to the style of 2nd edition, without the rules clutter. Make the forces smaller so a battle represents a skirmish in the context of a larger engagement versus the large engagement itself.

I have only been in the model side of 40k for 6 years or so. I have been witness to some serious price hikes and borderline ignant codex changes. I absolutely love to play the game and I have not won a serious game of 40k in some time simply because the BA codex is so messed up right now. I understand that I am not going to get a take all comers list and mop the floor with my enemy but I would really like to atleast be able to make them feel some pain once in a while without having to field my Thunder Guppies.

I will say this much though, when they redo the BA codex, if it is not equal to or better than the current SM codex, I will be done. I have many other hobbies that I can do and I am the last of my close friends to give up on 40k ... but the time draws nigh I sense.

Personally, I love allies [now have the chance to play my Slaanesh Daemons alongside my Emperors Chidlren, and the new Inquisition codex inspired me to take them as allies alongside my SoB - all very fluffy!]

I also think Escalation is great - now I don't have to play a 3 day long apocalypse game just to use my warhound titan, or beg people to let me use the Horus Heresy rules.

I think flyers are great fun and add a whole new level of gameplay.

I don't find balance an issue - last time I was tabled was with my Dark Eldar in 5th.

So personally I feel that 6th gave me the ability to make much fluffier armies, and meant that I can use lots more of my models that would otherwise be sitting around collecting dust.

Not a GW apologist, just giving my opinion based upon my experience.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
IMO a lot of problems in 40k (certainly not all) could be fixed with the reintroduction of "requires opponents consent". Then we could have a nice simple ruleset and simple well defined armies, and if people want to have their fluffy games with a hero who wipes out entire armies with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse, they can do that too... with their opponent's consent

You can't play any kind of game without your opponent's consent.

Reasonable people understand that and make compromises to achieve a fun result for everyone involved.

Explicitly requiring consent would lead to donkey caves insisting I can't use my Tyranid Prime, or you your Tactical Marines, then there would have to be an official list of what is or isn't acceptable, which already exists in the form of codexes that are actually part of the problem. Thus the argument becomes circular.

I don't think you quite understand what I meant by "requires opponents consent".

Obviously all games are with opponent's consent, but some things like special characters, Forge World or allies IMO should specifically say "requires opponents consent" so that they can be held separate from the core rules. Things like Tyranid Primes and Tac Marines are core troops, they would have no such marking on them.

What this means is that people will make lists without those things in them for pick up games and tournament organisers can just have an outright ban on all such things... but if you still want to take your allies and you FW and your special characters, buy them, paint them, and when you go to have your friendly game, just ask your opponent if he/she minds you using it.

The same could be done with extraneous rules. Certain rules could be marked as "extra", so that a typical game would NOT contain those rules, but before a game you could ask your opponent if they're happy playing by the extra rules.

Obviously all games require opponents consent, but people assume they are going to be playing by the rules as given by GW, if there are certain things set aside that specifically say "ask you opponent first", then it prompts people to actually ASK "is it ok if I use blah blah" and gives opponents recourse to say "umm, I'd prefer not" without sounding like dicks.