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Redbeard wrote:

2) The irrelevance of initiative in the face of numbers. A group of 10 Chaos Marines charging an ork horde are, on average going to kill 7 or 8 orks. And, somehow, all those dead orks are being pulled from models that weren't engaged and wouldn't have swung back anyway, while none of the engaged models took a hit. Having a higher initiative really is a kick in the pants now, because you're paying points for something that does very little for you.

I agree, the ability to pull casualties from unengaged models is pretty goofy, and really benefits horde armies. At least in 4th, my CSM could potentially kill enough orks to survive the massive number of attacks coming back at them. As in "I kill 6 orcs, so you lost 18 attacks." Now the orks get the full power of their assault even if they fare badly.

It makes my zerkers sad in the pants.

I lost interest in the game of 40k a while ago. (I think I was always a bad
Fantasy player at heart).

warpcrafter wrote:Thanks to TLOS and wound allocation, 40K went from an actual unit-based game to a slow, fiddly skirmish battle game. It makes playing apocalypse battles impossible unless both sides are made up of teams, and then it's just lots of little battles that happen to be crammed onto the same table.

i dont see the problem with this, if you want realism, itsa s if the entire unit is getting hit, so you cant slap on someone with a 2+ invul save. (dark eldar) to stand in front of the unit and pllay a soccer goalie and catch all the hits.

Redbeard wrote:1) Partial True Line of Sight. I'd be ok with it if it was really TLOS. I'd be ok with it if it was conceptualized terrain, like 4th ed. What I cannot understand is how you can call it True Line of Sight if I can hide 9-of-10 men behind a building, and you can still kill all 10 of them because you can see one. Surely those guys aren't that dumb.

Well, I think I need to read the LOS section again. I've been playing it as a hybrid of 4th and 5th by mistake, so only the models that can be seen are viable targets, but get the cover save... Come to think of it, that's just the 4th ed rules. I guess that's what you get for skim-reading!

Oops.

TLOS sucks. I've played two games and had arguments in both. Why don't we just cut out the middle man and say "everything gets a 4+ cover save." Leaning over to see if my soulggrinder is 50% covered vertically or I can see one dork through a window and hence kill the entire squad is just stupid.

I don't like the mass of 4+ cover saves (50% of all shots ignored), strength four defensive weapons, the target priority rules. Kill points and objective taking seem badly thought out too. They put in some good rules and then put in a load of bad ones to even it out. I'm most disappointed by the lack of change to 40k's worst rules, morale and monstrous creatures vs. vehicles damage resolution.

5th ed is a mixed blessing.

I have to say that I like the fact that only troops are scoring, it means that we get to see more infantry. But the downside with that is for armies with expensive troops (like my Blood Angels), they will not have a lot of points left for cool stuff. So hmm... dont know...

Wound Allocation sucks... plain sucks... takes long time and you stand a bigger chance to loose your expensive upgrades to your troops.

New rules for Power Fists etc. The usual GW attitude, nerf the power and keep the price ( or increasing it...)

Rules for tanks... They dont move as much, almost impossible to shoot apart and far to easy to destroy them in cc..

... And the list go on...

So hmm I dont really know...

I have to play a few more 5th ed games before I make up my mind


//Edge

My problem with it is that it wasn't a step forward, it was a major sidestep. They created just as many problems as they solved, or more. the game is now much more fiddly where it didn't need to be, and it seems like it was shoved out the door just to get another product out there, and it seems more like change just for the sake of change than anything else.

The ubiquitous 4+ cover saves for just about everything are too commonplace and also disproportionatly benefit armies without power armor (3 of my 4 armies are not MEQ armies) and a BS modifier really would have been more appropriate in almost all of these cases (that way rapid firing bolter through trees at a 4+/3+/2+sv squad would actually suffer something rather than just giving the squad a cover save it isn't going to use, and isn't going to triple the life expectancy of Orks).

Kill Points are slowed, flat out. These have such a disproportionate effect on different armies that its laughable. I've seen the justification that armies with lots of KP's have lots of scoring units, but this isn't always true by any means and even when it is it doesn't mean that it in any way balances out. "oh look, I've got half my IG army left, you have one Space Marine left, you win!".

The Scoring changes are also rather stilted, as they heavily favor armies with the most mobile or sturdiest troops, and the units that have historically been the objective takers, both from a Gameplay perspective and a fluff perspective no longer function in that role (think Stormtroopers, Terminators, etc)

Wound Allocation was a *HUGE* mistake. Not only does this make many upgrades extremely overcosted in light of their likely lifespan (looking at *you* Chaos Icons) but also slows the game down immensely. I understand they wanted to get rid of the hidden powerfist, but after raising their costs, removing their attacks, and removing availability, I think they have gone *way* overboard. This also presents a much greater harm to units that rely on having upgrade equipment to be effective rather than simpler units (think Chosen with meltaguns versus Fire Dragons, every Fire Dragon is still capable of killing a tank, but it wouldn't be hard for Chosen to lose all of their meltaguns potentially and no longer be effective in their dedicated role). Far from making 40k more "cinematic" as they wanted to, this rule *really* is "game-y"

As an addendum to wound allocation, the fact that if one man in a squad can be seen, the whole unit can be killed is *slowed*, especially since the whole squad is not able to return fire due to LoS.

The defensive weapons changes weren't warranted, and after listening to Alessio's podcast and his reasoning all it did was confirm my suspicion that he really doesn't understand the role of the tank relative to the role of the infantry based heavy weapon squad.

I have grown to like the new vehicle CC rules, however I do think that if this is going to be the rule, that the big battle tanks (Leman Russ, Hammerheads, battlewagons, etc) need and deserve rear armor 11.

While I like the new CC rules for the most part, as well as the changes to consolidation, vehicle damage, deployment types, and TloS, I really think this book should have been a lot better. Not only does it leave much up to the players (and gives an opponent the opportunity to be a jackass if they want to be and be totally within the rules) but many of the changes just smack of either being lazy, or incompetently trying to cater to really young players and making the game more complex and unbalanced as a result.

enmitee wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:Thanks to TLOS and wound allocation, 40K went from an actual unit-based game to a slow, fiddly skirmish battle game. It makes playing apocalypse battles impossible unless both sides are made up of teams, and then it's just lots of little battles that happen to be crammed onto the same table.

i dont see the problem with this, if you want realism, itsa s if the entire unit is getting hit, so you cant slap on someone with a 2+ invul save. (dark eldar) to stand in front of the unit and pllay a soccer goalie and catch all the hits.

I have no idea what you're referring to, but I know better than to mix reality and WH40K. If you want to play a game with units, treat them like units and if you want to play a skirmish game, then go do that. GW is trying to combine the two, and that's not possible.

jfrazell wrote:TLOS sucks. I've played two games and had arguments in both. Why don't we just cut out the middle man and say "everything gets a 4+ cover save." Leaning over to see if my soulggrinder is 50% covered vertically or I can see one dork through a window and hence kill the entire squad is just stupid.

That is why I've not gotten beyond a few solo test-games where I switch between both sides of the board, just to see this trainwreck for myself. I don't really want to go all R. Lee Ermy on some sarcastic 13 year old at my local store just because he thinks his twisted intepretation of line of sight is so cool. All the grown-ups at my gaming store have moved on to flames of war. I just might follow.

Redbeard wrote:1) Partial True Line of Sight. I'd be ok with it if it was really TLOS. I'd be ok with it if it was conceptualized terrain, like 4th ed. What I cannot understand is how you can call it True Line of Sight if I can hide 9-of-10 men behind a building, and you can still kill all 10 of them because you can see one. Surely those guys aren't that dumb.

While I certainly agree with you on this one from a conceptual standpoint, the problem with doing things the 4th editon way was that it allows for range snipeing. I have no idea how many heavy weapon / sargeant models I killed in 4th by positioning my shooters just far enough away that only 1 or 2 models (including the special one) were in range. So really the question is, which do you think sucks more? I happen to like the 5th version a bit better. Sure I can stick one guy out in the open to shoot and the whole squad gets cover, but then the whole squad can die too. In the end, I think the 5th version makes for a smoother game since you only have to measure out one guy and then check cover for the whole squad rather than measureing out range for every guy and his mother and then check cover.

2) The irrelevance of initiative in the face of numbers. A group of 10 Chaos Marines charging an ork horde are, on average going to kill 7 or 8 orks. And, somehow, all those dead orks are being pulled from models that weren't engaged and wouldn't have swung back anyway, while none of the engaged models took a hit. Having a higher initiative really is a kick in the pants now, because you're paying points for something that does very little for you.

If you charge into an orc horde, they get the immediate pile in move so the likelyhood of any of them being out of attacking range is very small. Regardless, this prevents charge sniping / clipping (running in so you only can kill a few models and make sure you stay in hand to hand for the next round) which is another screwy game mechanic from 4th that I'm happy to see go. Still, I think initiative is still useful but not in a broken way. The (very good) change to the way frag grenades work also makes inititative more valuable so all in all I think it works out.

3) The static nature of tanks, especially skimmers. I agree that the skimmer-moving-fast rule was too good. But, a leman russ should be able to move and fire all three of it's heavy bolters (they have three gunners according to the fluff), a hammerhead should be able to move and fire its secondary guns, and a falcon should be able to engage with its weapons too while flying.

This one I agree with you on, particularly since there is a substantial bonus for not moving (cover).

4) The nature of scoring and kill points in missions. If one boy out of thirty manages to survive, you get nothing for your effort, and he can hold an objective still.

I'm of two minds about this. I like that the focus is more on getting things where they need to be and making other tactical decisions rather than just killing everything. However the fact that some things are just so much better prepared to deal with this sort of setup chafes. I guess that's really more of a problem with the codexes rather than a problem with the game design. I also kind of like the kill point system, IG just needs some adjustment so they are not screwed but again...a codex problem.

I like 5e.

I do not like the irrelevence of numerical supremacy in CC.

shrug.

First off, all the whining, holier-than-thou, one-right way to play people that spew that you're a bad person if you don't play thier way were killing my interest in playing 40k anyways.

That being said, there are two deal-breakers for me switching to 5th.

1) I'm a tread head. I used to love moving and firing all my tanks guns. The change to pillboxes is a game-play change that makes the game less fun for me.

2) Troops only scoring. It is way too hamfisted gamey to me. It makes sense that the heavy weapon squad is detailed to hold an objective in your area, the tactical squad is detailed to take the one in the middle and the assault squad is the one that takes the objective from the enemy. Not to mention that not all troops are equal makes for unbalanced games.

Other quibbles-

1) Kill points. Make no sense and heavily penalize some armies/units.

2) TLOS...As other people have said.

3) Taking skill-based things (Limited charges, sniping) out of the game, just turns results to be luck-based.

4) Skimmers having to choose between getting protection and shooting. Sorry...I like my gunships.

5) Combat resolution solely through kills.

6) The above combined with fearless units taking extra casaulties equal to combat resolution.

GW just turned the game on it's head. It is no more balanced than it was before. There are still power builds, just what the builds are different. I don't want to reconfigure all 6 of my armies for the new edition.

Numerical supremacy is irrelevant to kirsanth, but overwhelmingly broken and overpowered to redbeard. Is someone right or is the truth right in the middle?

I agree 100% with Phoenix's first two points above. Range Sniping sucks way more than a few guys out of LOS being possible casualties. Charge Clipping is tons stupider than the unengaged being possible casualties.

I wonder how much these complaints about LOS and casualty removal are just disguised and misguided nostalgia for Range Sniping, Charge Clipping, and BTB casualty shenanigans. Good riddance to all of them.

Yeah I'm in the camp of nostalgia for range sniping, charge clipping, and btb shenanigans.

Ranged sniping was not the problem anyone makes it out to be. You could defend against it quite easily by deploying your forces in such a manner that logically cover the special weapon/character with ablative bodies. I would snipe out someone's lascannon if they left it hanging out on the edge of a formation, but who's fault is that?

Setting charges, again, defensible and more high-order oriented play that is now gone. Where previously the angle of attack and the formation of participants would have an enormous effect on the outcome of an assault.

And BTB shenanigans, gave you the final piece of the charge setting puzzle. I want to hit hard enough to win, while I want to hit soft enough to stay based to get a chance to run them down. I want to get all of the casualties I can in, but I want to avoid mixing initiatives where possible to prevent faster models from taking away the potential kills of slower models. Additionally, I better have a consolidate option ready, or be prepared for this squad to get wiped if they do too well.

All of these things have been replaced with: "Roll more dice, you win!"

Meh.

It's a game, it has rules and rules can always be "exploited" (or gamed.)

That is arguably the point of a game, to learn how to exploit the rules in order to win.

In a wargame, the rules should attempt to reproduce real tactical problems.

Range sniping can be sen as an extension of skilful tactics or completely unrealistic, depending on your viewpoint.

I honestly like most of the changes other people dislike (los changes, morale changes, vehicle changes).

My major beef is with the scenarios, luckily that is an easily fixed problem: just use better ones.

I also think close combat is a little wonky now and would have liked a bit of a compromise between 5ed and 4ed -- like negatives per wounds lost but some kind of adjustment to moral and no retreat for outnumbering.

I like 5e better than 4e even though I have played only one game using the 5e rules. There are some big changes that take getting used to and the transition is harder than it was going from 3e to 4e. The rules needed a major overhaul and GW finally did it. I find the rule book easy to follow and think the format and writing style is the best yet.

G

Off the top of my head TLOS, Slow vehicles, and Ld Modifier in assault.

Sorry TLOS sucks. Especially the TLOS except when shooting at a partially hidden unit. Area terrain was way, way better. Range sniping and all that BS that supposedly rampant in 4th, yeah right, that happened on such a limited scale I hardly noticed it. Let alone got upset about it.

Slow vehicles, at least if you want to shoot, is lame. I know Eldar skimmers were out of control, but you have to punish everyone? I do like how they are a little more survivable, but how long is that gonna last? I already see everyone loading up on ap1 stuff, and units that excel at getting into rear armor.

Ld modifier in assault, yikes, that was quick. Sure I can get shot up now but the poor assault/leadership armies are getting owned. Hello outflank?

Rant off. I have played 20+ games with 5th, and I like it a lot. At first I liked it a ton, but I am quickly seeing how it is going to be just as exploitable as 4th, if not more. The current codex's are way off.

Edit:
and call me crazy, I like the new wound allocation. It was painfully slow at first, but once you do it a bunch it speeds up. You really need an assorted color collection of dice.

Okay we all agree TLOS sucks the proverbial root. We should keep crying and maybe Clint Black will write a country & western song about it.

G

as mentioned, there are some great new rules, but there are twice as many bad rules been added.
i stick to playing 4th, and most people at the local GW wont play 5th.
and since 5th has been brought out ive taken an interest in WHFB now, not as many stupid rules

Huh?

Rules-wise, 5th is a *lot* better than 4th. It is much clearer and tighter, although they are not perfect. There are still loopholes, but they are fewer and smaller. So I take that as a clear improvement.

And what is most interesting is that the new rules correspond quite well to the older FAQs.

methoderik wrote:Edit:
and call me crazy, I like the new wound allocation. It was painfully slow at first, but once you do it a bunch it speeds up. You really need an assorted color collection of dice.

Youre not crazy. I like the rule too, just hate how its hard to get a handle on when playing your first few games of 5th ed.

Assorted colors has helped work out the kinks regarding speed for me considering wound allocations as well.

Whats required to stream line the rolls really is grouping of the wounds. 4 yellow dice for the plebes, a black die for the sgt, and a red die for the lascannon, for example.

What's amusing is how it's very much like how you roll to-hit with multi-color dice.

methoderik wrote:Especially the TLOS except when shooting at a partially hidden unit.

That still uses True LOS, because you're targeting the unit, not the individual models.

Area terrain was way, way better.

...but only affected area terrain.

I like TLOS, i play with folks who dont have to argue over every lil peice of terrain. We are adults about it, and if he says its 50 and I say 75%, we agree to a 5+ cover save. It leads to the game being more about the experience than being a powergamer.

Wound allocation takes a ton of time, and in tourney play, esp recently is brutal because everyone forgets about it. I loved the idea about 3 sets of dice, since face it everyone of us has at least 3 bricks of dice because we have forgot a brick at home(I have a spare brick in my glovebox in case).

I disagree with the tank remarks. I think it is quiet appropriate, allowing for more tactical mobility and less move 6 shoot, move 6 shoot. It forces you to make a choice on whether you want to get to a position or fire all your weapons. On top of this as another poster pointed out, transports are now not just coffins, and can be used to great effect, esp with the new ramming rules, which are absolutely amazing. In my 5th edition games, I have 1 vind kill, a wartruckk and a dread kill with a rhino.

As for troops scoring and KP, I agree that it bones certain armies, but on the other hand how "lame" was it to face an infantry line with 200+ models, 6+ las cannons/heavybolters/ML/Autocannon? You no longer have gimmick lists that prey on the fact that they can overwhelm the enemy with rate of fire to mask the fact that their tactical acumen was nil. If you want to take a 200+ guard line you better know that in a KP mission you more than likely will get you ass handed to you on a platter.

Overall 5th edition made me appreciate 40k more. It turned into more of a thinking man's game than a "who can build a broken list" game. Yes there will still be broken lists, but these lists will be exploited quickly, countered and eliminated. 5th allows folks who understand tactics to work their magic instead of 4th where any 7 year old with CSM could run a table because of broken mechanics?

I like fifth. True line of sight is a bit wonky with terrain features that have to be moved like forests but it's still better and more intuitive than saying that my units can't shoot through a seven foot tree line.

The wound allocation is a great addition. Finally the guy with the powerfist is no longer guaranteed to be the last one to die. It was always an annoyance when i would cleave through six space marines only to have one guy with a big hand miraculously live and kill four of my high priced close combat only troops on the return. Granted it does take a little bit longer, but it still doesn't take very long at all as long as both players have played a few games with it before.

The new vehicle rules are nice and I still find the concept of the pillbox tank kind of frivolous. Supporting armor in modern conflicts do not move and fire at the same time when they have close infantry support (like they do in 40k). Infantry clears suspected anti armor then the tank moves up and sits using its heavy gun to provide heavy support against entrenched or behind cover combatants. It's rare to even see a tank at half full speed while in combat and its just plain dangerous to do so in a crowded theatre as your likely to impede or harm friendlies by jetting around everywhere. Tanks are mobile pillboxes (unless they are skimmers, but those still move faster than infantry so it's not a huge issue to me).

Troop scoring was a great decision and has already made armies look more like actual forces rather than a tough small band of veteran heavy weapon close combat monsters who eat bricks and crap bullets. Troops should never have been thought of as "compulsory".

Kill points suck. I will grant that.

Overall a few changes are a bit odd in fifth (LOS specific terrain pieces that you have to move to place models) and a few are annoying (killpoints) but put together its a good change.

I don't understand all the newfound joy at wound allocation. 4th Edition already HAD that in it in a more streamlined form (Torrent of fire). Granted, since it wasn't mandatory, you were sometimes seen as a power-gaming rules lawyer if you used it.

What exactly does the word wonky mean pray tell?

G

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/wonky