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My FLGS is mostly 40k and FoW, with a few guys having fantasy armies as well. Fantasy, IMO, has the better rules but is the worse game of the two. The game plays tight, but once armies are picked and deployed, the game is 90% decided. I've had fun playing, but lack of balance, both in terms of power and in terms of what you can bring (all cav, lots of monsters, magic heavy,tons of static CR, etc) make actual games not too much fun.

I think Flames of War is stealing a lot of the WFB interest, as well as the 40k players who are seeking a bit more of a tactical game play. Even there, a bad mission and a bad opponent draw can torpedo a player even worse than in 40k.

Buried in all of the criticism heaped on 40k is a pretty simple truth: outside of a very small handful of mega builds, more of 40k is decided by the actions of the players than by the externals of lists, missions, etc. than occurs in nearly other game.

Agreed. In 40k, if you build a "smart" list, you could easily beat anybody, even a uber competitive list, it would just be more difficult.
In fantasy a "generic" list struggles against top-tier lists (Which is probably why they are top-tier), and a list built to face them spends a lot of points on things that really have no effect against 90% of everything else.

At the club I go to, we have around 15 members. 2 of us actually play, while the others sit around and talk about playing. I honestly havent seen a single game that wasn't myself vs. Gamma Tau in about two months.

That said, we play both Fantasy and 40k and have a 50-50 ratio of play, as we normally play one game of each system atleast 3 tiimes a week.

Fantasy has gained a lot of momentum locally.

During a normal Saturday instore gaming, we typically will have 2-3 40K tables, 1-2 Fantasy tables and 1-2 FOW tables.

Regarding our last tourneys, we've had the following:

40K: 32 players
Fantasy: 20 players
FOW: @ 16-20 players

Sadly, there is 0 Warmachine.

I wish I could find a larger group that played fantasy. But everyone here plays 40k :(. I would also like to play Flames of War but I don't know any groups! That I think is the problem. 40k is likable (aka. it's just another IMA KNIGHT! Fantasy, its FUTURE!) and is more appealing to new players so they dive into it and don't experiment with other things because they are focused on that thing. Then they just keep at it.

I started with Warhammer Fantasy. It's always been amazing and fun. I have about 5000 points of Orcs and goblins. Now I have about 3000 points of Tau.

It's pretty heavily 40K where I live. There are some Fantasy players around, but pretty few by comparison. There's a small Blood Bowl League in the South End and War of the Ring seems to be popping up in the North End a bit. We take a look around for Fantasy every once in a while though since one of our players is sitting on about 10,000 points of Dogs of War and gets the urge to play every now and then.

The only Fantasy I could ever get people into was stuff from the Skirmish booklet.

I still have that dang booklet too, albeit with the covers gone from age.

avantgarde wrote:Go is basically just checkers.

Id love for you to explain this to me. Go is nothing like checkers. You do not move pieces across the board. You do not king stuff. You do not keep adding pieces to a checkers board. You do not hop peices. Now how is this anything like go?

At my local Games Club (Hydra Gamers, meeting from 7 p.m. every Wednesday, Robin Hood Pub, Tunbridge Wells) it's mostly Fantasy, in so far as pretty much every member has a complete Fantasy army, and usually more than one. Why this is, I dunno, but our towns GW has pretty much always been more of a Fantasy store than a 40k one, so I guess NooBs get their vision of gaming coloured from there.

And to whomever claimed Fantasy is just moving towards stuff, I say nonsense. In 40k, you move. In Fantasy, you manouver. The limitations add an extra demand of skill from the players, as the move you make now will come to fruition in the next couple of turns. Lovely game Fantasy, and I find my victories in it far more rewarding than any from 40k.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And to whomever claimed Fantasy is just moving towards stuff, I say nonsense. In 40k, you move. In Fantasy, you manouver. The limitations add an extra demand of skill from the players, as the move you make now will come to fruition in the next couple of turns. Lovely game Fantasy, and I find my victories in it far more rewarding than any from 40k.

Stelek Still Disagrees with you

Link appears to be dead dude!

And Stelek is quite simply wrong. Strikes me he never quite got Fantasy, and in a fit of arrogance, decided it was clearly the system and not the player

Fantasy is getting some very good plastics these days e.g.

Night Goblins
Black Orcs
Temple Guard
Corsairs
Cold One Knights
Most of the Empire range
Most of the VC range

I would argue that 40K used to have a stronger model range in plastic, but now it's getting more level, which may be why more people are being drawn towards the Old World.

That's great that Stelek disagrees with me and Mad Doc, Gwar!. Fantasy IS more complicated, I don't see how it isn't. Armor save modifiers, Actual Combat Resolution (Not just who kills the most) etc. etc.


If you can point out how 40k is more complex, then I might agree with you. I just don't see how, seeing as how I play both.

Cryonicleech wrote:If you can point out how 40k is more complex, then I might agree with you. I just don't see how, seeing as how I play both.

Check the link that I fixed. Explains it rather well

I'm not going to comment on the relative merits of each system, especially as I haven't played 40k since Cities of Death was released.

All I'm saying is that I enjoy Fantasy far more than 40k. To me, the appeal is the 3rd or 4th turn of Fantasy which typically are make or break time. By that point, one player has a definite upperhand and whilst the opponent can of course recover from this, it is usually time for them to consider damage limitation than reversing their fortune. The game as a whole gels well within itself. Your Magic can be used to either chin stuff, or a lot more subtly (like miring an enemy unit, denying your opponent a potentially game winning charge).

Sure, the power lists do indeed ruin it, but like in any game, that is why they are power lists. If they were countered in the same manner as the other lists, they wouldn't be power lists.

Overall, I feel Fantasy has more scope within it's armies than 40k. If someone offers me a game, and I tell them I play Orcs and Goblins, they won't be able to predict with real certainty what I'll be bringing along, thus it becomes harder for them to write an army list to specifically beat me.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:All I'm saying is that I enjoy Fantasy far more than 40k. To me, the appeal is the 3rd or 4th turn of Fantasy which typically are make or break time. By that point, one player has a definite upperhand and whilst the opponent can of course recover from this, it is usually time for them to consider damage limitation than reversing their fortune.

Well, that's usually how it is in 40k too. Generally closer to turn 3 than 4, with the shooting being more powerful.

Overall, I feel Fantasy has more scope within it's armies than 40k. If someone offers me a game, and I tell them I play Orcs and Goblins, they won't be able to predict with real certainty what I'll be bringing along, thus it becomes harder for them to write an army list to specifically beat me.

If I tell you I play Orks you're not going to know what I have either.

I can build a list with eight battlewagons, nothing but bikers, nothing with save worse than 2+, a bunch of light trukks, a loota gunline, or a green tide. All of these builds are fairly viable as well.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I can build a list with eight battlewagons, nothing but bikers, nothing with save worse than 2+, a bunch of light trukks, a loota gunline, or a green tide. All of these builds are fairly viable as well.

And Likewise, I could say I play Space Marines.

Am I playing Land Raider Spam, Shrike Termies, All Drop Pod, Vulkan + Sisters, Outflanking Khan etc etc.

With IG it gets even worse:
All Mounted, Russ/Griffon/Hydra Spam, Hoard Infantry, Air Cavalry, PsykerBattleVets etc etc

Cryonicleech wrote:Fantasy IS more complicated, I don't see how it isn't. Armor save modifiers, Actual Combat Resolution (Not just who kills the most) etc. etc.

If you can point out how 40k is more complex, then I might agree with you. I just don't see how, seeing as how I play both.

If you play Daemons, 40k is clearly more complicated. True Ward saves mean you never apply an ASM. The Psychology stuff simply doesn't apply. Oh, and I think they're even Unbreakable, so most of the CR stuff drops out, too.

Thankfully, GW doesn't allow this kind of army to dominate armies that depend on normal armor, along with unmodified psychology and break tests - like, say Beasts, Ogres, and Dogs of War...

Oh, wait...

Alright, a few things then.

1. This is Stelek, mind you. Anything I say will be countered fiercely.

2. I'll give him his bits on the movement phase. But because there are more limits, it means it's less complicated? so that makes it better? no. It simply means that it's less complicated. Apparently, less complicated is better.

3. So shooting isn't a part of every army? Orks have shooting, but do they excel at it? No. It means that now you have to play to your army's strengths and weaknesses. Ok, so shooting is restricted to LOS, once again, more complicated, less fun.

4. Oh yes, magic IS overpowered. Sure, it is, if this was 40k. It's really balanced in Fantasy, the magic phase. Power Dice and Dispel dice are usually equal, spell don't go off as easily as Stelek would like to think, nor is it as game changing.

5. Yes, 40k Combat gives you more attacks. So what? It's warhammer fantasy, do you expect a unit of normal humans to have 3 attacks minimum? And of course unit combat is protracted, that's how it happens IN REAL LIFE. Combat didn't last for an hour, it lasts until your opponents lose their resolve and flee.


Stelek's way of arguing is blunt and ineffective. He's in essence comparing Apples to Oranges. 40k is a different game, therefore a different system. Of course Fantasy is more restrictive, this isn't Fantasy 40k. Fighting in ranks has been around since the Civil War and beyond, of course it's restrictive.

I don't think Stelek has ever played a game of Fantasy, quite frankly.

Edit: Ok, many of the Newer armybooks are overpowered, thus imbalancing the game. I'm looking at you, Daemons of Chaos, as well as Vampire Counts. The game is going through a bump right now, but they'll have to update the 'dexes sometime. Certain armies aren't fun to play against, true, but is that what your looking for? Winning every game and refusing to rise up to a challenge, regardless of the results? I've had my ass handed to me by Dwarfs, Daemons, Dark Elves, High Elves, Bretonnians, whatever. I had fun doing it though, and regardless of your Win/Loss ratio, it is still a game.

Regardless, to each his own.

Cryonicleech wrote:Edit: Ok, many of the Newer armybooks are overpowered, thus imbalancing the game. I'm looking at you, Daemons of Chaos, as well as Vampire Counts. The game is going through a bump right now, but they'll have to update the 'dexes sometime.

Certain armies aren't fun to play against, true, but is that what your looking for?

Winning every game and refusing to rise up to a challenge, regardless of the results?

Updating the Army Books in a more-or-less balanced fashion is possible. Space Marines didn't go up in power in any of their recent revamps (CSM, SM, DA, BA), and I don't think anybody is expecting an overpowered SW book. Daemons came out just fine. Guard are different, but not obviously broken. But WFB? Daemons and Vampires *are* brokenly overpowered. In such an environment, can you fairly tell someone to start a bottom-tier army like O&G / Beasts / Ogres?

Yes, it is - I'm just looking for a fun game.

I no longer need to win every game, but I like the notion that the armies are more-or-less balanced, and that simply isn't the case in WFB.

you're very right, John. The Daemon armybook is just about the stupidest thing GW could do to the game. The new armies are broken, and you're right in that it does ruin the experience.

To me, it boggles my mind why GW released the book like that. Even cursory playtesting should have revealed that Daemons would be grossly off-balance.

Now, if GW is really intending for DoC and VC to start a new series of WFB Army Books, and by this, effectively invalidate the older armies, that's a pretty sneaky thing to do.

Cryonicleech wrote:
I don't think Stelek has ever played a game of Fantasy, quite frankly.

You should have seen his musings in the Fantasy army list forum, it was hilarious.

Either way, Fantasy has a tighter rule set than 40k primarily due to the presence of those restrictions intended to model sword and board combat. However, it also suffers in terms of overall diversity because the greater restriction reduces the number of viable tactical choices.

That said, the game is improving. There are balance issues for certain, but I would expect them to fall by the way side as the books continue to be updated. It looks like GW has actually decided that rank and file should actually kill things, instead of pushing against each other for extended periods of time.

What is really annoying to me is that they decided that they wanted to change the dynamics of armies to make them more competitive and they don't even think about the other armies.

They'll think about them...when their books gets updated.

Just look at the bitch fest that happened before 40k had most of its books updated. Now you have people talking about how its actually more balanced than fantasy (for now they're right), and a superior game. You never would have heard that a couple years ago.

There are more 40k players who play fantasy than those who play fantasy only. And there are more 40k players who play just 40k than either the 40k/fantasy or fantasy only players. And if we're talking just miniatures wargaming, there are maybe a handful of players that play neither... its a bigger group than the 40k/fantasy or fantasy only players

There are.

Fantasy is certainly more expensive than 40k, seeing as how most armies have a required 70 dollar minimum or more.

I started in 40k DA 3rd edition. I still play 40k but I prefer Fantasy, I started 7th ed VC when the new book came out. I think there is more thinking involved in Fantasy and I have been beaten by "lesser,weaker" armies in Fantasy like Beasts, Empire etc.... I'm a firm believer in any army can beat any other army. Its the general who makes the final difference.

Every army can beat every army except Daemons.

They are the cheesiest army in the game. Period. Beating them should earn you a Medal of Valor.