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taylorton147 wrote:no you cant have transports without units in them because they ae taken as OPTIONS remember this. i tryed this with my friends without knowing about the options thing and i didnt go down well :(

If you mean you cannot buy a bare transport then yes. No where in the rules does it say that the unit it was bought for even has to see the transport let alone get in it.

Homer

P.S. Nevermind... like 40 people already mentioned this...

Sliggoth wrote:As long as you want to talk realism....virtually all armies would let you know which one was the command vehicle. In the 40k universe commanders are flamboyant, their vehicles will be more ornate and more wildly decorated. In the real world the command vehicle will tend to have upgraded commo gear. So yes it often would be possible to pick out the command vehicle.



Sliggoth

I wonder how long it would take these guys to learn that the big ornate vehicle is always the first to go. Leave that 'honour' to a mate and go hide in some other tin can.


Edit: This is a link to a recent similar thread if anyone is interested in the fun vs unfair advantage argument.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/275548.page

'Realism' swings both ways...

On a battlefield with tends of thousands of bugs swarming across the terrain, are soldiers *really* going to be able to pick out weapon options on every unit? Are they going to know or be able to see the difference on the ground?

What about Orks? All orks look the same expect for the weapons they hold. And with the unstandardized weapons orks use, who can tell if that is a shoota, a KMB a Deffgun or what? hell, that is if they hold it above their heads for you to see.

Either 40k is a place where they have no access to any of this and we simply are playing with the knowledge of an omniscient force, or we assume that these battles are smaller fights in a larger battlefield and there are all sorts of sources of information from spying to tactical sensors, transmission interception to orbital monitoring.

I can't *see* what is in your Rhino? Maybe my kommandos watched your pre-mission prayerfest. Maybe my mek detects the unique energy of your artificer armor with his 'doohicky'. Maybe my Weirdboy had a vision for Gork and Mork who divined your transports? maybe the battlefield is already covered in grots and one of them started screaming 'In dis one bozz!'

Realism is a shoddy excuse for powergamers in closed-topped transports to have an advantage over other gamers without paying for it in points and skew the balance of the game in their favor. They know it is obviously advantageous to not disclose what is in thier transports and they want the advantage and they try to strongarm opponents into playing thier way by saying "I'm not gonna cheat, you can trust me" or "it ruins the game for me personally, realism is much more fun".

If you want to make house rules then be serious about it and attempt to make it fair by actually paying for the advantage and giving it to all armies. Pay upgrades for jammers for your transports, allow people to buy pre-game intelligence to disclose units. Allow units to pay to deploy in area terrain without being seen. Attempt to actually pay for the advantages this type of house rule gets and attempt to make it fair opposed to browbeating opponents with "realism".

nkelsch wrote:Realism is a shoddy excuse for powergamers in closed-topped transports to have an advantage over other gamers without paying for it in points and skew the balance of the game in their favor. They know it is obviously advantageous to not disclose what is in thier transports and they want the advantage and they try to strongarm opponents into playing thier way by saying "I'm not gonna cheat, you can trust me" or "it ruins the game for me personally, realism is much more fun".

You've obviously had a bad experience with this at some point to feel so strongly.

By your argument, how do you explain players who will play house rules that don't give themselves this advantage but hand it to the opponent (don't say they were strong armed into it)? Could it be possible that people just prefer to play this way without really caring about the strategic advantages on way or another?

sometimes it is nessecary to know, i know i have a reason: ignorance. one time my friend absolutely refused to tell me what was in his rhinos. after bickering about it for a few mins i finally gave in for the sake of playing the game.

3 turns in i destroyed a rhino and out pops the lord of chaos himself, abaddon the despoiler in his flashy terminator armor.

i think you can see the problem with this, a terminator in a rhino, you can understand my frustration after that

Soup and a roll wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Realism is a shoddy excuse for powergamers in closed-topped transports to have an advantage over other gamers without paying for it in points and skew the balance of the game in their favor. They know it is obviously advantageous to not disclose what is in thier transports and they want the advantage and they try to strongarm opponents into playing thier way by saying "I'm not gonna cheat, you can trust me" or "it ruins the game for me personally, realism is much more fun".

You've obviously had a bad experience with this at some point to feel so strongly.

By your argument, how do you explain players who will play house rules that don't give themselves this advantage but hand it to the opponent (don't say they were strong armed into it)? Could it be possible that people just prefer to play this way without really caring about the strategic advantages on way or another?

You should always care about playing a balanced game. I do not want an unfair advantage and I do not want to insult my opponent by making the game easier for him by giving him an unfair advantage or purposefully handicapping myself.

I would probably explain opponents who like this style of play but use an army that does not have any benefits from it (like a Tau gunline or tyranid swamp) as players who lack a true understanding of the game mechanics and probably have limited experience in the game as a whole. They simply don't realize how it impacts the game and has bought into the veterans of the groups claims of 'realism'. They go with the flow like most players not realizing that they are getting screwed. This forum is full of such players who play full games on bogus rules simply because the opponent said it worked this way and they went with the flow. The fact we see a new thread on this topic every week means some cheaty git strongarmed some inexperienced player by saying "I don't have to tell you what is in my transport." If they were being honest and not trying to strong arm people they would say "While I do have to show you what is in my transport per page 93, would you mind playing a variant of the game where we keep things secret?"

But they don't. Because they know how it impacts the game and gives them an advantage and if someone doesn't know that secrecy is not optional they pretend this is how the game is played, which makes them cheating gitz.

The game is not designed for it, it is unbalancing and makes the game unfair. If both players have full understanding of the rules and choose to play a variant then fine, but you and I both know that is not what happens in most situations as lots of people do not have full understanding of the rules.

idk, nkelsch.
we've got some pretty tarded fools at my flgs. and some younger kids (Snotlings) who come in with dear old dad and play. in both cases i take handicaps: beating a 12 year old on a level playingfield is NOTHING to brag about, and isn't fun for me or my opponent. i keep my status as an average player AND have a blast with an adversary who, otherwise, would be little more than 2 hours of dominance.

on the other hand, those SUPER weak players: the ones who keep their 500 bucks or so of professionally painted Marines in Ziplock baggies in a duffel bag, who play and play and play and still suck....
i didnt deploy 3 units in 'ard boys against this guy (i GAVE HIM THE KILL POINTS) and STILL WON. i was embarassed for the guy.

i guess what im saying is that the first and formost rule of the game is to HAVE FUN. i cant talk for you, nkelsch, but shooting fish in a barrel is pretty boring. i like a challenge. i like to WORK for the victory. it means something then. if an opponent who i choose to play, or get stuck playing in some cases, stands little to no chance of winning, or tying, i toss them a bone. cuz ive been on the crap-side of domination, and it sucks.

The Watcher wrote:idk, nkelsch.
we've got some pretty tarded fools at my flgs. and some younger kids (Snotlings) who come in with dear old dad and play. in both cases i take handicaps: beating a 12 year old on a level playingfield is NOTHING to brag about, and isn't fun for me or my opponent. i keep my status as an average player AND have a blast with an adversary who, otherwise, would be little more than 2 hours of dominance.

And these are the types of players where someone shouldn't trying to gain an advantage via 'you can't see inside my transport' because they will go along with it.

And we all know the difference between a teaching game where you play differently and a real game. I still think there should be some expectation of balance.

i guess what im saying is that the first and formost rule of the game is to HAVE FUN. i cant talk for you, nkelsch, but shooting fish in a barrel is pretty boring. i like a challenge. i like to WORK for the victory. it means something then. if an opponent who i choose to play, or get stuck playing in some cases, stands little to no chance of winning, or tying, i toss them a bone. cuz ive been on the crap-side of domination, and it sucks.

If people need handicaps because they are learning the game, trying to introduce "you can't see in to my transport' is the worst possible thing you can do. They need to learn how to play the core rules correctly and gain experience winning and losing in that situation. There are much better ways to deal with handicaps and keep the core of the game intact so they can learn opposed to throwing in a completely broken house rule.

And many people find it insulting when you purposefully pull punches or hold back. If I s ee an opponent doing it, I ask them why they did just in case they have a new tactic or something I am missing. And if their response is "I am beating you pretty bad, I didn't feel the need to slaughter you" or some other reason to hold back I tell them they should boardwipe my orks because it will motivate them to perform better next game.

And if I got outplayed and he boardwipes me, then it was a good game and I am not going to cry about it or want pity handouts... But losing and differing skill levels doesn't justify "you can't see inside my Rhino" shenanigans.

nkelsch wrote:You should always care about playing a balanced game. I do not want an unfair advantage and I do not want to insult my opponent by making the game easier for him by giving him an unfair advantage or purposefully handicapping myself.

Agreed that balancing is important, although certainly not always. In a game such as 40k with so many different races and army variants, I think there are a lot of avenues open to abuse that will make the game obviously unfair to one player. This combines with players' varying ability, terrain and so on. I hope we can agree that GW are not infallible balancers.

Veiled transports are, as discussed, open to abuse if players want to cheat, maximise their advantage or don't know the rules (KommanderKurtikai's example is nasty!). This isn't always the case. It isn't a problem if players are in it for fun. I could give myself a much larger advantage by building a power list.

nkelsch wrote: I would probably explain opponents who like this style of play but use an army that does not have any benefits from it (like a Tau gunline or tyranid swamp) as players who lack a true understanding of the game mechanics and probably have limited experience in the game as a whole. They simply don't realize how it impacts the game and has bought into the veterans of the groups claims of 'realism'. They go with the flow like most players not realizing that they are getting screwed. This forum is full of such players who play full games on bogus rules simply because the opponent said it worked this way and they went with the flow. The fact we see a new thread on this topic every week means some cheaty git strongarmed some inexperienced player by saying "I don't have to tell you what is in my transport." If they were being honest and not trying to strong arm people they would say "While I do have to show you what is in my transport per page 93, would you mind playing a variant of the game where we keep things secret?"

But they don't. Because they know how it impacts the game and gives them an advantage and if someone doesn't know that secrecy is not optional they pretend this is how the game is played, which makes them cheating gitz.

Here, I agree it is best if both players are civil and everybody agrees and understands the rules. Everything else is a nice mixture of patronising, generalising and generally insulting to the people in this thread who have said they like to play this as a house rule.

nkelsch wrote:The game is not designed for it, it is unbalancing and makes the game unfair

If I could give a rather bizarre example: The new Tyranid codex just came out. If it were possible to quantify such complex things it is theoretically possible to identify which book (old or new) is the more advantageous rule set to the player. This would mean that by using the new rules, a Tyranid player has (probably marginally) more or less chance of winning than before. These changes, by your definition, upset the balance and so are unfair. This is obviously not true as GW have just adjusted what is 'fair'. Why shouldn't we do the same if everyone agrees?

If you'll allow me to fix your final sentence than we can agree:

nkelsch wrote: If both players have full understanding of the rules and choose to play a variant then fine, but you and I both know that is not what happens in some situations as lots of people do not have full understanding of the rules.

Soup and a roll wrote:

If I could give a rather bizarre example: The new Tyranid codex just came out. If it were possible to quantify such complex things it is theoretically possible to identify which book (old or new) is the more advantageous rule set to the player. This would mean that by using the new rules, a Tyranid player has (probably marginally) more or less chance of winning than before. These changes, by your definition, upset the balance and so are unfair. This is obviously not true as GW have just adjusted what is 'fair'. Why shouldn't we do the same if everyone agrees?

No, because the points of the codices have been balanced. Whether they actually are balanced is another question. However there's a difference between Games Workshop changing the rules of a codex (and the point values, etc.) and you deciding to change the rules to give vehicles an advantage without doing anything else.

Of course, if all involved agree with full knowledge of the rules, it's fine. If all agree, you can make the average marine cost 200 points and have a straight ten statline.

Zid wrote:On a personal note, I think telling whats in transports is kinda lame... I think its to keep people on the straight and narrow, but it gives people target priority which I feel makes the game kinda lame. If I have 2 land raiders telling my opponent which one has abaddon kinda kills the "surprise!" of it... I always thought the point of transports was to roll across the field, your foe shooting at whatever one presents the best opportunity, not "Unload on the red rhino, it has berserkers!" or "pop the left land raider its got wolf guard!" Kinda ruins it a bit, thats why me and my gaming group always agree to not tell. Just one of the issues I have with the game. In a tourney I can understand it, but for casual play it shouldn't be required. You could tell if someones cheating if their HQ or whatever doesn't pop out until the last transport (unless your bad at guessing)

Feel free to build a time machine and go back to the days of 2nd edition when you had to shoot the closest target, nomatter what.

While it may make sense tactically speaking, 40k isn't about tactics really. That's why you've got more flavors of Space Marines than Baskin Robbins has ice cream, and they're almost always some goofy pastel color. How many modern armies go to war in bright yellow uniforms? In how many armies is it normal for only enlisted men to wear helmets?

Rogue Trader and 2nd ed better reflected the fluff of 40k IMO, as characters were given far more importance than regular infantry. GW is moving away from that (thank the Lord!), but there's still the goofy fluff aspects of a character-driven game, such as the big cheese rolling around in the hottest transport around.