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what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

you now have to track like seven different layers of various army-wide rules to run any given faction. The space marine codex is an absolute nightmare of hundreds of datasheets and statlines and unit entries. The missions are wildly obtuse.40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame that I regularly play by a wide, wide margin. It outstrips the obscure, beardy wargames that I have played in the past before you even get to the stage of considering stratagems, relics, warlord traits, etc.

I feel like I only get how the rules actually function and fit together because I've been following along and playing continuously since the beginning of 8th. I've tracked how everything has changed and twisted, but even I let something slip under my radar every once in a while and when that happens I do something like open up the datasheet of mortarion's current rules and I go what the actual feth am I looking at, he has HOW many warlord traits and abilities and rules and powers and what the feth is a plague contagion???

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

you now have to track like seven different layers of various army-wide rules to run any given faction. The space marine codex is an absolute nightmare of hundreds of datasheets and statlines and unit entries. The missions are wildly obtuse.40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame that I regularly play by a wide, wide margin. It outstrips the obscure, beardy wargames that I have played in the past before you even get to the stage of considering stratagems, relics, warlord traits, etc.

I feel like I only get how the rules actually function and fit together because I've been following along and playing continuously since the beginning of 8th. I've tracked how everything has changed and twisted, but even I let something slip under my radar every once in a while and when that happens I do something like open up the datasheet of mortarion's current rules and I go what the actual feth am I looking at, he has HOW many warlord traits and abilities and rules and powers and what the feth is a plague contagion???

All these things you mention are only apparent when you go into the deeper aspects of the game. At a basic level 40k is still only a BRB and Codex game. If two 13 year olds wander into a Warhammer store the sales person doesn't sell them on secondaries, strats etc, they sell you on cool models, killing stuff and awesome lore. Its been years since I went near a GW store but if the demo games are like they were they definitly do not talk about anything beyond basic stats and weapons.

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

you now have to track like seven different layers of various army-wide rules to run any given faction. The space marine codex is an absolute nightmare of hundreds of datasheets and statlines and unit entries. The missions are wildly obtuse.40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame that I regularly play by a wide, wide margin. It outstrips the obscure, beardy wargames that I have played in the past before you even get to the stage of considering stratagems, relics, warlord traits, etc.

I feel like I only get how the rules actually function and fit together because I've been following along and playing continuously since the beginning of 8th. I've tracked how everything has changed and twisted, but even I let something slip under my radar every once in a while and when that happens I do something like open up the datasheet of mortarion's current rules and I go what the actual feth am I looking at, he has HOW many warlord traits and abilities and rules and powers and what the feth is a plague contagion???

Yeah, it is getting to be a huge problem forgetting new people into the hobby. It basically takes months and months of effort to get to the point where you have a solid grasp on the rules. And then for many months after that, someone gotchas you with a strat you didn't know about that they didn't tell you about (see that thread re: how many people think taking advantage of someone's lack of knowledge of your army's rules is kosher and "part of the strategy") and ruins a 3 hour game.

It's a lot to ask of new people. Hell, even veteran tournament players regularly submit illegal lists by mistake, the game is that obtuse.

 Sim-Life wrote:
...All these things you mention are only apparent when you go into the deeper aspects of the game. At a basic level 40k is still only a BRB and Codex game. If two 13 year olds wander into a Warhammer store the sales person doesn't sell them on secondaries, strats etc, they sell you on cool models, killing stuff and awesome lore. Its been years since I went near a GW store but if the demo games are like they were they definitly do not talk about anything beyond basic stats and weapons.

I don't know about you but I think that's grossly misrepresenting the game to gee up the 13-year-olds. As soon as they walk into a game store looking to play with someone other than the GW manager running demos they're going to run into the whole wall of FAQs/tracking which version of the points are typos/what buffs to stack where and get eaten by people who do use the stratagems/relics/WTs/etc., even if they were lucky enough that the models they thought were cool were playable.

You can sell someone on 40k by not mentioning anything that's wrong with it, sure. That feels kind of dishonest to me.

I can confirm the shock of difference between the first two demo games and what happens durning first regular game.

Solution is to retcon everything that GW does that svqus e.g.two different kinds of marine with restartes only willing to travel in flying tanks, use any reasonable model we want at og 28 mm scale, go back to rules sets that rocked and were affordable, now basically free and with many community approved mods, remember why we bother, and take time to visit the local shop to backhand the meta game bullies who make newbie life hard.

 Octopoid wrote:
Wait, I'm confused. Is GW a major company that could produce "good" rules (here at least meaning "new") and has chosen not to for nefarious reasons, or are they a collection of incompetents that couldn't produce good rules to save their own lives? I've heard both arguments now, and they feel mutually exclusive.

When in doubt blame the knife-ears, both nefarious and incompetent. /sarcasm

I don't think they are exclusive. It can be both. Why try to balance stuff when it requires work, worse it goes against the steady sell of models policy.

Then come personal characteristics. Someone may really be exited to write rules for lets say new Ad Mecha. And it may show in rules and how optimised they are. The same person may later be send to do the rules for tyranids, and do a very bad job at it, because they don't aren't much interested in the army.

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

you now have to track like seven different layers of various army-wide rules to run any given faction. The space marine codex is an absolute nightmare of hundreds of datasheets and statlines and unit entries. The missions are wildly obtuse.40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame that I regularly play by a wide, wide margin. It outstrips the obscure, beardy wargames that I have played in the past before you even get to the stage of considering stratagems, relics, warlord traits, etc.

I feel like I only get how the rules actually function and fit together because I've been following along and playing continuously since the beginning of 8th. I've tracked how everything has changed and twisted, but even I let something slip under my radar every once in a while and when that happens I do something like open up the datasheet of mortarion's current rules and I go what the actual feth am I looking at, he has HOW many warlord traits and abilities and rules and powers and what the feth is a plague contagion???

I have 2 mates that would really Love to Start but basically just don't preciscly because of the rules salad gw attempts to force Players to buy...
That and the increased pricehikes that happen randomly have put them firmly in the nope camp.

Basically demo Games awesome , asks for reality in books --> Decide against it, after realising the pilenof books required. And they are comparatively lucky. In contrast to the many Players that Start an Edition blueeyed and basically drop out the Next or the one after that because they get smart...

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

You go in to the store, ask for demo games. Demo games are fun. You ask friends what armies they start, to not overlap. And check what stuff you like and can afford. You watch some games, played by other people. You ask about the army you picked at the store, and the sellers may give you two types of stories. Either that the army is great, or even that everything is great, or they tell you the truth, but to a level where you still want to buy the stuff.
You check the forums and you can enough conflicting info to know absolutly nothing. Because you get anwsers ranging from X is OP to X is trash. At the same time you get the whole play what you like, every army gets updated and has its time to shine etc. So you buy your army and start playing, with an assumption, that if something costs so much, it should more or less work to some degree.
The truth you find out only after you start playing the game. And sometimes you get lucky and the army is really good, sometimes it is something in the middle, and sometimes you find out that the people that said it was trash were right.

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

you now have to track like seven different layers of various army-wide rules to run any given faction. The space marine codex is an absolute nightmare of hundreds of datasheets and statlines and unit entries. The missions are wildly obtuse.40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame that I regularly play by a wide, wide margin. It outstrips the obscure, beardy wargames that I have played in the past before you even get to the stage of considering stratagems, relics, warlord traits, etc.

I feel like I only get how the rules actually function and fit together because I've been following along and playing continuously since the beginning of 8th. I've tracked how everything has changed and twisted, but even I let something slip under my radar every once in a while and when that happens I do something like open up the datasheet of mortarion's current rules and I go what the actual feth am I looking at, he has HOW many warlord traits and abilities and rules and powers and what the feth is a plague contagion???

It's funny to hear someone saying this in 2021.

7th ed 40k, and by extension Horus Heresy, requires you to completely memorize 35 pages of rules just to be able to move a unit from standing out in the open, into cover. A game of 7th edition, even before the powercreep, required almost 300 pages of absolutely mandatory memorization before you could even realistically put even a small army on the table. To actually PLAY an army was another 100-150 of pages of memorization from your codex.

Now, I know this isn't a great example because 7th edition was terrible but every single previous generation of 40k also required hundreds of pages of perfect knowledge (and often dozens of pages of FAQs) just to be able to pick a model, move it, shoot it, figure out if you killed your target. Same with WHFB honestly. And both of those were successful for a very, very long time.

Now I'll admit that getting up to speed in the current edition is a bit rough, certainly the roughest it's been since the indexes, but 40k has always been nonsensically opaque in its rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

You go in to the store, ask for demo games. Demo games are fun. You ask friends what armies they start, to not overlap. And check what stuff you like and can afford. You watch some games, played by other people. You ask about the army you picked at the store, and the sellers may give you two types of stories. Either that the army is great, or even that everything is great, or they tell you the truth, but to a level where you still want to buy the stuff.
You check the forums and you can enough conflicting info to know absolutly nothing. Because you get anwsers ranging from X is OP to X is trash. At the same time you get the whole play what you like, every army gets updated and has its time to shine etc. So you buy your army and start playing, with an assumption, that if something costs so much, it should more or less work to some degree.
The truth you find out only after you start playing the game. And sometimes you get lucky and the army is really good, sometimes it is something in the middle, and sometimes you find out that the people that said it was trash were right.

This is why buying for power is always a stupid idea when you first start. Pick what you like, figure out how to make it work later. It's not like you'll be going up against expert tournament players 90% of the time.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think that would be less of a problem if GW wasn't surrounded by the "cult of officialdom."

If you have a Model T, you can make your own parts (or have a mechanic/machinist make your parts).

If you have an old GW model, you could, similarly, just write rules for them in the current edition...

...but you lose the inherent advantage 40k has over other wargames in that you can play it anytime, anywhere, with anyone (at least by comparison). Because the average 40ker is a cultist of officialdom and is hesitant to step out of that comfort zone against a stranger or acquaintance, especially for a pickup game.

So what you're butthurt about here is that people don't want to play against legends stuff because it's fallen out of standardization and there's no value for them to play against it? Do you also cry every time a Model T (to continue the metaphor) isn't allowed into a Nascar event?

If you want to play legends, the vast majority of people don't care and the ones that do are allowed to make the choice to not play against it. In tournaments Legends are excluded because they've fallen out of standardization and are deemed a liability for the integrity of the event, which is something literally every competitive environment in history does. You can't use a Volleyball at the World Cup either, just FYI.

Calling it a 'cult' because you want to do something other people don't is pretty pathetic.

ERJAK wrote:
...It's funny to hear someone saying this in 2021.

7th ed 40k, and by extension Horus Heresy, requires you to completely memorize 35 pages of rules just to be able to move a unit from standing out in the open, into cover. A game of 7th edition, even before the powercreep, required almost 300 pages of absolutely mandatory memorization before you could even realistically put even a small army on the table. To actually PLAY an army was another 100-150 of pages of memorization from your codex.

Now, I know this isn't a great example because 7th edition was terrible but every single previous generation of 40k also required hundreds of pages of perfect knowledge (and often dozens of pages of FAQs) just to be able to pick a model, move it, shoot it, figure out if you killed your target. Same with WHFB honestly. And both of those were successful for a very, very long time...

If you want to claim that you have to perfectly memorize the whole hardback rulebook to play, including fluff and alternate play modes, 9th is, what, 360 pages?

If you want to be honest and actually count only the amount of material you actually need to play the 7e core rulebook is maybe 40 pages, counting diagrams. You've never had to memorize the points costs of options you weren't taking to play Warhammer, which makes up the bulk of any Codex, unless you're trying to claim that "playing Warhammer" includes building a list from memory on a clock. If you want to actually try and count the amount of bloat and memorization involved I'd suggest you try building a few representative 2,000pt lists in 7th and then in 9th, use Battlescribe's print army list function, and compare the page counts there. Possibly with the addition of two or three pages of stratagems to the 9e list, depending on the army book (some armies' stratagems are more relevant than others).

If you want to compare the amount of effort required at the table I'd encourage you to try rolling a Bad Moons unit with random damage against an enemy unit with FNPs in 9th. Hit, hit reroll, exploding hits, exploding hit reroll, wound, wound reroll, save, then go through one at a time and roll damage/FNPs to see how much actually dies isn't an improvement in speed of play over hit/wound/save or hit/armour pen/save/damage table.

7th gets held up as a representative example of bloat and crappy design a lot, but personally I find 7th much clearer, better-written, and more playable than 9th.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
what i really do not understand is...how could someone who is completely uninitiated not look at how the rules for the current game look and run screaming in the other direction?

you now have to track like seven different layers of various army-wide rules to run any given faction. The space marine codex is an absolute nightmare of hundreds of datasheets and statlines and unit entries. The missions are wildly obtuse.40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame that I regularly play by a wide, wide margin. It outstrips the obscure, beardy wargames that I have played in the past before you even get to the stage of considering stratagems, relics, warlord traits, etc.

I feel like I only get how the rules actually function and fit together because I've been following along and playing continuously since the beginning of 8th. I've tracked how everything has changed and twisted, but even I let something slip under my radar every once in a while and when that happens I do something like open up the datasheet of mortarion's current rules and I go what the actual feth am I looking at, he has HOW many warlord traits and abilities and rules and powers and what the feth is a plague contagion???

Yeah, it is getting to be a huge problem forgetting new people into the hobby. It basically takes months and months of effort to get to the point where you have a solid grasp on the rules. And then for many months after that, someone gotchas you with a strat you didn't know about that they didn't tell you about (see that thread re: how many people think taking advantage of someone's lack of knowledge of your army's rules is kosher and "part of the strategy") and ruins a 3 hour game.

In general this is not my observation concerning our new players.
Half the players in my local shops started with 9th last summer/fall. And most of them dove right into Crusade. They had no major problems.
If it took months and then many more months for them to have a decent grasp of the rules? Then the local shops would be considerably emptier as many of them would've quit.
We're still adding new players btw.
Age ranges are 16 - late 40s.

They also don't seemed phased by the fact that they don't know everything about every other army than their own.

People have been hating on GW since the 80's and they are still going strong. There are many reasons but I think a big part of it is that people get into the hobby and that is their favorite edition. All the know is the ruleset and meta they joined and they love it. Then at some point GW changes the rules and makes some peoples army suck. Or they hate change. Not everyone but enough so they get upset and bitter. They complain and possibly even quit. Then GW does it again - changes the rules or releases an OP codex. So more people get upset and drop out.

So this goes on or decades with more people coming in but a slow but steady outflux of disgruntled gamers who complain until it has reached critical mass where there is always a certain amount of malcontents who hang around and poison everyone's ears with their anger. It gets to the point it is almost cool to complain.

This is not the only reason but i think it is the reason GW generates so much hate yet is still so popular. Any other company with this much bad publicity would have folded ages ago. Personally, I think the 8th/9th edition was a nice change of the rules (I liked 8th better than 9th but its still good).

D&D goes through this too the big difference is that people just keep playing the edition of D&D they like and don't go to the new one which keeps the anger down a bit. For some reason it is really rare to see people playing an old edition of 40k.

ERJAK wrote:
It's funny to hear someone saying this in 2021.

7th ed 40k, and by extension Horus Heresy, requires you to completely memorize 35 pages of rules just to be able to move a unit from standing out in the open, into cover. A game of 7th edition, even before the powercreep, required almost 300 pages of absolutely mandatory memorization before you could even realistically put even a small army on the table. To actually PLAY an army was another 100-150 of pages of memorization from your codex.

Now, I know this isn't a great example because 7th edition was terrible but every single previous generation of 40k also required hundreds of pages of perfect knowledge (and often dozens of pages of FAQs) just to be able to pick a model, move it, shoot it, figure out if you killed your target. Same with WHFB honestly. And both of those were successful for a very, very long time.

Now I'll admit that getting up to speed in the current edition is a bit rough, certainly the roughest it's been since the indexes, but 40k has always been nonsensically opaque in its rules.

Suppose you are new and don't know what Genestealers can do.

If it's 3rd Ed, you look at the codex entry for Genestealers. You see their statline, and that they have Fleet of Claw (defined right there). They have Rending Claws, so you flip over to the wargear page and it tells you what Rending Claws do. And now you understand Genestealers.

If it's 9th Ed, you look at the codex entry for Genestealers. You see their statline, and that they have Flurry of Claws, Lightning Reflexes, and Swift and Deadly. Well, all of those are defined right there, so that's not so bad. They have Rending Claws too, but this time the rules are given on the entry. And now you understand Genestealers.

Sike! I slap them with Opportunistic Advance and/or the Swarmlord's double-move ability and they slingshot three feet across the board before charging your most vulnerable unit. Sorry, you didn't look at the rest of my codex to see what combo abilities I have; nor did you look at my extensive list of Stratagems, nor did you look at all the Hive Fleet subfaction traits. Oh, you did look at those? Joke's on you, I'm using a custom fleet from Psychic Awakening and another half dozen stratagems to blindside you.

Comparing to 7th is a low bar, but at least in 7th there were far fewer things completely outside of a unit's codex entry that could radically shape its performance. It's not enough to see what abilities a unit has in 9th; you have to understand all the stratagems, subfaction traits, and combo abilities that also feed into it. And if you're a new player and you don't, you get blindsided by ridiculous nonsense like Genestealers moving faster than attack jets, flying across the board before you can react like Monty Python's Lancelot.

I've observed this with several new players: It's not just the complexity of the rules, or even the number of different rules sources, or inconsistency across similar abilities, that catches newbies in 9th. It's the lack of predictable behaviors or consistent ground rules. You can't take anything for granted, and you don't fully understand a unit until you've collated six different sources across three books.

I'm just here to pit my little green men against whatever unfair, unbalanced, and psychotic force the Universe and GW can throw at them. Winning was probably never an option, and yet we stand.

Put it another way, what do you learn about yourself if you have the advantage, can assure victory by following a list or a script. You learn more when you're outmatched and in over your head sometimes.

Bring it.

 RegularGuy wrote:
I'm just here to pit my little green men against whatever unfair, unbalanced, and psychotic force the Universe and GW can throw at them. Winning was probably never an option, and yet we stand.

Put it another way, what do you learn about yourself if you have the advantage, can assure victory by following a list or a script. You learn more when you're outmatched and in over your head sometimes.

Bring it.

This sums up how I play....

 RegularGuy wrote:
I'm just here to pit my little green men against whatever unfair, unbalanced, and psychotic force the Universe and GW can throw at them. Winning was probably never an option, and yet we stand.

Put it another way, what do you learn about yourself if you have the advantage, can assure victory by following a list or a script. You learn more when you're outmatched and in over your head sometimes.

Bring it.

The problem is that when I go and try to figure out why I lost a game of 40k the answer is almost always "you bought the wrong little green men, there's no way to win unless you throw them all out and buy a different army."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think that would be less of a problem if GW wasn't surrounded by the "cult of officialdom."

If you have a Model T, you can make your own parts (or have a mechanic/machinist make your parts).

If you have an old GW model, you could, similarly, just write rules for them in the current edition...

...but you lose the inherent advantage 40k has over other wargames in that you can play it anytime, anywhere, with anyone (at least by comparison). Because the average 40ker is a cultist of officialdom and is hesitant to step out of that comfort zone against a stranger or acquaintance, especially for a pickup game.

I mean.. this is how most people play other games too. Framing it as a Cult of Officaldom (Really?) because people want to actually play the rules of the game as written is the oddest thing I've seen on Dakka in a while.

We wrote:
People have been hating on GW since the 80's and they are still going strong. There are many reasons but I think a big part of it is that people get into the hobby and that is their favorite edition. All the know is the ruleset and meta they joined and they love it. Then at some point GW changes the rules and makes some peoples army suck. Or they hate change. Not everyone but enough so they get upset and bitter. They complain and possibly even quit. Then GW does it again - changes the rules or releases an OP codex. So more people get upset and drop out.

So this goes on or decades with more people coming in but a slow but steady outflux of disgruntled gamers who complain until it has reached critical mass where there is always a certain amount of malcontents who hang around and poison everyone's ears with their anger. It gets to the point it is almost cool to complain.

This is not the only reason but i think it is the reason GW generates so much hate yet is still so popular. Any other company with this much bad publicity would have folded ages ago. Personally, I think the 8th/9th edition was a nice change of the rules (I liked 8th better than 9th but its still good).

D&D goes through this too the big difference is that people just keep playing the edition of D&D they like and don't go to the new one which keeps the anger down a bit. For some reason it is really rare to see people playing an old edition of 40k.

Ditto on the D&D comparison. still have all my 3.5 books no need to play any other edition. the GM can clamp down on any player abuses as needed.

Index 8th was far to simple for full scale 40K but we have found that it makes for a great template for use in epic scale you just need to halve all the ranges.

5th is still the gold standard for core rules of full scale 40K play as far as our group is concerned that is why we still play it. granted it wasn't perfect, but a few house rules/imports form other editions fixed all the problems.

You know, I remember being a teenager. Those damned kids are sponges when it comes to soaking up info. All of school is a lot of rote repetition and verbatim absorbing of boatloads of information- that's literally how their brains are designed and how they work when they're that age. Teenagers can handle learning the rules side of 40k even if it is in a dozen books.

ZebioLizard2 798400 11130199 wrote: I mean.. this is how most people play other games too. Framing it as a Cult of Officaldom (Really?) because people want to actually play the rules of the game as written is the oddest thing I've seen on Dakka in a while.

He's not wrong though. Neither are you, but I think you're maybe not aware of where he is coming from.

Playing 'rules as written' in theory is fine, but I've yet to.come across a rules system that didn't have grey areas or ambiguities. 'Rules as intended' is a thing too.ultimately everyone wants something different, I personally don't think it's wrong to accommodate, forcing a 'one size fits all, proper way to play, anything else is badwrongfun' approach causes its own problems.

The 'cult of officialdom' refers more to how a lot of gamers settle on a narrowly defined 'default play' - say, 1500pts matched play based on these half dozen scenarios, this one list and refuse to step outside its boundaries - anything else is not 'proper' 40k. the hundreds of 'legal scenarios' and alternative ways of approaching the game might as well not exist. Keep an eye out, you'll see this more often than you realise. There's plenty anecdotes on dakka from.folks saying how others were bamboozled even to find 'there were other scenarios in the game?!'

I don't always agree with Unit but I've read enough on how he plays here to appreciate that he, and folks who play like him will find thid narrow approach stifling.

Youll see The other more extreme manifestations of the cult of officialdom where ypu see posts basically stating the rules must be followed even if they're crap and you're a white knight/tfg/apologist/beaten spouse/bad person if you homebrew or tweak or ignore the broken rules(or even worse, suggest these things, or gasp! even consider you have responsibilities yourself!) and where you see things like folks complaining how x is broken and ruining the game, then taking ten of x, bludgeoning their opponents with them, shrugging off any sense of responsibilities and saying 'meh it's in the rules' so it's not my fault and there nothing I can do about it or should do about it. Suck it up'. Folks like me will say gw screw up plenty, and often, at best, their rules don't help, but they're only one side of the coin.

ccs 798400 11130130 wrote:

In general this is not my observation concerning our new players.
Half the players in my local shops started with 9th last summer/fall. And most of them dove right into Crusade. They had no major problems.
If it took months and then many more months for them to have a decent grasp of the rules? Then the local shops would be considerably emptier as many of them would've quit.
We're still adding new players btw.
Age ranges are 16 - late 40s.

They also don't seemed phased by the fact that they don't know everything about every other army than their own.

I think that biggest rules problems come from people who are way older then teens, and played in prior editions. Maybe they played for some time in 8th, but then they quit etc. There are some very unfun moments, when you have to go all, sorry sir I know you are 3 times as old as me, but the rules do not work that way. The only people my age or close to my age who didn't learn to rules , were those who didn't want to learn them.


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ERJAK 798400 11130066 wrote:This is why buying for power is always a stupid idea when you first start. Pick what you like, figure out how to make it work later. It's not like you'll be going up against expert tournament players 90% of the time.

Well what if you bought it not for power, but it doesn't work and GW doesn't do anything to fix it? Or the fix is, well you just have to invest another 600-700$, and the army will still be kind of a bottom tier? And again this is big assumption that a new player will think that if he pays big money for an army it can just not work, maybe never get fixed or outright removed. Just imagine what you just said to someone who in end WFB bought in to a bretonian army, because they like knights.

ERJAK 798400 11130066 wrote:

So what you're butthurt about here is that people don't want to play against legends stuff because it's fallen out of standardization and there's no value for them to play against it? Do you also cry every time a Model T (to continue the metaphor) isn't allowed into a Nascar event?

If you want to play legends, the vast majority of people don't care and the ones that do are allowed to make the choice to not play against it. In tournaments Legends are excluded because they've fallen out of standardization and are deemed a liability for the integrity of the event, which is something literally every competitive environment in history does. You can't use a Volleyball at the World Cup either, just FYI.

Calling it a 'cult' because you want to do something other people don't is pretty pathetic.

That is a strange example, because people in general do not own a Ford T and if they do, they can make money out of it, even if it is in rough shape. And the comment, that people don't care, if something is legends or not, is just not true. Just go to this forums lists section and check how many lists have legends units in them or use legends rules, comparing to those that don't.


Also why wouldn't you be able to use a volleybale at a World Cup. Is it some sort of an idiom?

Experienced people miss-remember rules because of previous rule editions. New people miss remember rules because of inexperience.


Both groups will forget things, so its nothing really unique to either group. It's just part of playing a real world game that does have rule changes as opposed to a computer game where its impossible to break the rules*




*Unless you hack/cheat or otherwise modify the game.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
It's called a FALLACY for a reason.

Your argument is like insisting that Ford still make parts for the Model T just because you bought one. At some point it becomes untenable to continue supporting legacy products and they have to be dropped.

Marines have reached levels of codex bloat that push that up even sooner. You may not like it, but something has to give in that book. When they go to legends just use them as Primaris and you'll be fine.

Yes, because they need to keep putting out parts for my already made and built models, thats exactly what I am saying. I mean it isn't but if you want to keep on with it, fine. They can, forever, use the human mind to keep thinking up rules for my old marines, unless your telling me they can't possibly find the brain power for that after a point, at which point, sounds pretty sad for them. Requires them to produce nothing even close to a part for a ford model T. One of those things requires imagination, which I'd hope game designers have a lot of, the other requires actuall tools and factories to produce them.

I couldn't care any less how you don't like the marine bloat, I want my first born marines rules. Maybe your caring needs to give and not my enjoyment of my guys. Just get over it and maybe you will be fine.


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ccs wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Why are people still shocked that all of the 9th Codexes aren't out when they were never going to be at this stage and that tiny little problem of a global pandemic is still going on and keeps getting worse.

Short answer: if they're shocked it's because they're stupid & clueless.

Longer answer: the above + a number of them just need something to be angry about/hold against GW each day.

My dude creature, GW shouldn't have released 9th during a pandemic, if they chose to do so regardless of circumstances people can be annoyed because we know what pace they want to poop out editions. The odds some armies may not even update to 9th or be just out when it rotates to 10th at this point feel pretty good, and that is a really suck feeling. GW is a victim of their own choices and shallow release windows. Maybe they should slow down enough people can actually enjoy an edition and people wouldn't get quite so annoyed at their pacing.

 the_scotsman wrote:
40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame

This is exactly my perception of WH40K at the moment, perfectly summarized. A short moment of mostly obvious decision making followed by 20 minutes of boring dice rolling and other resolution chores.

This is also my answer for the question in the starting post. I rarely play wh40k now and when I do I am mostly disappointed by how boring it is, but I still follow the game waiting for the moment when the proportions switch and we'll have plenty of interesting, deep decision making, considering and reconsidering moves followed by quick and neat, unobtrusive resolution as befits a game designed in 2020's.

I'd love to take my Eldar and Tyranids to battle again in a game that is elegant, interesting and modern.

Until then, when asked for opinion, I can hardly give one which isn't at least a bit negative, because that's what I think about the game as it is.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 RegularGuy wrote:
I'm just here to pit my little green men against whatever unfair, unbalanced, and psychotic force the Universe and GW can throw at them. Winning was probably never an option, and yet we stand.

Put it another way, what do you learn about yourself if you have the advantage, can assure victory by following a list or a script. You learn more when you're outmatched and in over your head sometimes.

Bring it.

The problem is that when I go and try to figure out why I lost a game of 40k the answer is almost always "you bought the wrong little green men, there's no way to win unless you throw them all out and buy a different army."

You could look at it that way, and with some armies perhaps that might be a problem. Or you could (for a guard player), go back to your tool kit, challenge your assumptions, and see if you can bring something stronger next time, then stronger, then stronger. If winning is your goal, I recognize that will not be satisfying. If being stronger every time is your goal though, I don't think army swapping each time the meta shifts is the best way. But I'm not here to tell people what and how to enjoy the hobby within their own tastes and interests.

ERJAK wrote:


This is why buying for power is always a stupid idea when you first start. Pick what you like, figure out how to make it work later. It's not like you'll be going up against expert tournament players 90% of the time.

This. GW isn't just selling a competitive game, it's selling a whole hobby. It took me like 3-4 years to put together a functioning army when a was a kid, but in the meantime I enjoyed my 40k even without playing with the miniatures.

People that demand a collection of models that is immediately functioning, does require 5 minutes to learn all the rules, and will work forever have simply made a mistake in joining this hobby.

Players that are interested in competitive games and tournaments should go into that kind of games after years and years into the hobby. Like most of the guys have done before them.

Cyel wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
40k is simultaneously the most simplistic (in terms of decision making) and the most complicated (in terms of how to resolve an action) wargame

This is exactly my perception of WH40K at the moment, perfectly summarized. A short moment of mostly obvious decision making followed by 20 minutes of boring dice rolling and other resolution chores.

This is also my answer for the question in the starting post. I rarely play wh40k now and when I do I am mostly disappointed by how boring it is, but I still follow the game waiting for the moment when the proportions switch and we'll have plenty of interesting, deep decision making, considering and reconsidering moves followed by quick and neat, unobtrusive resolution as befits a game designed in 2020's.

I'd love to take my Eldar and Tyranids to battle again in a game that is elegant, interesting and modern.

Until then, when asked for opinion, I can hardly give one which isn't at least a bit negative, because that's what I think about the game as it is.

This is exactly how I feel. Hell I was even coming around to giving it another go when the new Sisters book comes out but I attended a game my friends were having and if it wasn't for the fact that it was a group of friends getting together it would have been a miserable night.

The hiving out of important game rules into cheaply made expansion books is shameful

Well, five Flayed Ones for 40 € is a lot for single-wound models.
Shows the direction - items on price list get exponential cost increase.