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 Necroshea wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
But spam was back even in 3rd/4th no Nec? Rhino rush, Falcon rush, Ork BWs in 5th, DE venoms, SM bikes etc?

Spam cant be really eliminated can it?
I havent played fow or WMH etc but surely people "spam" optimals and optimal units? Or did GW allow it too much?

I dunno.

I think it can to some degree, WM/H has very minor instances of spamming, and it's only particular things that happen to synergize well. The only true spam list I can think of that operates by itself is ebutcher reaver spam. PP did a good job making things not so independently capable. If you're opponent has any sort of strong anti infantry focus, that reaver spam list gets spanked. It's hard to explain, but in order to win in WM/H you have to build a list that works together. In 40k it just feels like you take one really good unit and use as many of that as you can, and only a minimum of what you have to take to make it a legal army.

Yes, a combined arms approach. Something 40K talks about but seldom rewards. It's still a philosophy I stubbornly pursue when I do play though, to the detriment of my W:L ratio.

But MH, 40k does limit Foc choices no? HQ, elite, heavy etc?

 Ratius wrote:


Woah, relax BS. I wasnt having a go. I just meant, I will openly throw out questions to this forum and if someone agrees I will acknowledge their point via "granted".
Its not condescending. It means I agree rather than pick your post apart piece by piece. #hugs!

I'm quite relaxed. Friday alone, playing Civ and drinking beer. You just read a little deeper into my post than I intended.

But that's why I added the edit to point out I'm not a clever man. And that Az has a time machine.

I'd have a hard time getting more relaxed than I am now. Even my dog is finally asleep.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
But spam was back even in 3rd/4th no Nec? Rhino rush, Falcon rush, Ork BWs in 5th, DE venoms, SM bikes etc?

Spam cant be really eliminated can it?
I havent played fow or WMH etc but surely people "spam" optimals and optimal units? Or did GW allow it too much?

I dunno.

I think it can to some degree, WM/H has very minor instances of spamming, and it's only particular things that happen to synergize well. The only true spam list I can think of that operates by itself is ebutcher reaver spam. PP did a good job making things not so independently capable. If you're opponent has any sort of strong anti infantry focus, that reaver spam list gets spanked. It's hard to explain, but in order to win in WM/H you have to build a list that works together. In 40k it just feels like you take one really good unit and use as many of that as you can, and only a minimum of what you have to take to make it a legal army.

Yes, a combined arms approach. Something 40K talks about but seldom rewards. It's still a philosophy I stubbornly pursue when I do play though, to the detriment of my W:L ratio.

Former power blob user with a single leman, 2 vendettas, sentinels, bunch of autocannons, and a crap ton of boots on the ground. Back when my idea of winning was simply being able to take on you're strongest unit with nothing more than those boots and the bayonets the arms above them were carrying. Whatever happened after that was insignificant to me.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Have the "Alpha", "Gamma", and "Omega" concepts from 4E, but instead use them to differentiate different levels of gameplay. "Alpha" being say, strict singular old-school FoC with no Flyers or Superheavies, "Gamma" adding in Allies and Flyers, and "Omega" adding in Formations and Superheavies ad Multiple Detachments and Unbound. Or something along these lines.

As a 5th ed newcomer, please enlighten me with the Alpha, Gamma, and Omega formats.

You have piqued my interest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Necroshea wrote:


Former power blob user with a single leman, 2 vendettas, sentinels, bunch of autocannons, and a crap ton of boots on the ground. Back when my idea of winning was simply being able to take on you're strongest unit with nothing more than those boots and the bayonets the arms above them were carrying. Whatever happened after that was insignificant to me.

Pffft, real power blob players didn't even use any vehicles! Just Straken running around punching things open and Al outflanking a 40-man platoon.

 Ratius wrote:
But MH, 40k does limit Foc choices no? HQ, elite, heavy etc?

Well, they used to, but now you have allies, formations, and unbound.

I'm quite relaxed. Friday alone, playing Civ and drinking beer. You just read a little deeper into my post than I intended.

But that's why I added the edit to point out I'm not a clever man. And that Az has a time machine.

I didnt see your edit Brother Captain.

So I proffer the last of my Pierre Smirnoff and offer a truce of truely Tau-obliterating proportions.

Now fist bump...

 Blacksails wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Have the "Alpha", "Gamma", and "Omega" concepts from 4E, but instead use them to differentiate different levels of gameplay. "Alpha" being say, strict singular old-school FoC with no Flyers or Superheavies, "Gamma" adding in Allies and Flyers, and "Omega" adding in Formations and Superheavies ad Multiple Detachments and Unbound. Or something along these lines.

As a 5th ed newcomer, please enlighten me with the Alpha, Gamma, and Omega formats.

You have piqued my interest.

4E had the three different levels that allowed different things, this could be rolled for randomly for each mission.

In an Alpha Level missions, all that mattered was the mission objective, no VP's were used to determine victory, and units could not Deep Strike or Infiltrate unless (barring some exceptions that said they could always DS, like Terminators).

Gamma level missions allowed DS & Infiltrate, had NIghtfight potentially and Victory Points added to objectives.

Omega level missions had the "Escalation" rule (anything not "infantry" had to start in reserve), had the "concealment" rule (until it took a voluntary action you had to use nightfight rules to shoot at it), allowed DS & Infiltrate, used Victory Points, and had random game length.


These had different effects on different armies. I figured this sort of a thing could be brought back to reflect the different preferences for Army Construction.

Azreal13 wrote:

Spoiler:

Now fist bump...

I, uhhhh...just remembered, I have to be somewhere...else.

Vaktathi wrote:
4E had the three different levels that allowed different things, this could be rolled for randomly for each mission.

In an Alpha Level missions, all that mattered was the mission objective, no VP's were used to determine victory, and units could not Deep Strike or Infiltrate unless (barring some exceptions that said they could always DS, like Terminators).

Gamma level missions allowed DS & Infiltrate, had NIghtfight potentially and Victory Points added to objectives.

Omega level missions had the "Escalation" rule (anything not "infantry" had to start in reserve), had the "concealment" rule (until it took a voluntary action you had to use nightfight rules to shoot at it), allowed DS & Infiltrate, used Victory Points, and had random game length.


These had different effects on different armies. I figured this sort of a thing could be brought back to reflect the different preferences for Army Construction.

Interesting. Thanks for explaining that.

Thing is back in the days of 3rd/4th Rhino Rush as a spam tactic was VERY situational. It was great on the 4x4 boards at GW and the FLGS when there was sparse terrain. But on longer boards, or boards with a lot of terrain, it'd get bogged down and you could pick it apart piecemeal. I played Eldar in 3rd and with a single wraithlord, falcon and fire prism I could dance around most* rhino rushers and pick them apart. (*Blood Angels and their Death Company and their overcharged engines, very hard to stop.)

The biggest problem is all the unneeded rules and models, flyers have been nice I'll give ya, but don't need the plethora of stupid rules, just a tweak on skimmers and you're done.

Then adding in all the random BS, dear god the random rolls are the single biggest annoyance in 7th I have. And Run, and being able to buy buildings. (That should outlawed!!!!!)

Things like MCs used to just be 'they ignore armor saves and hurt things' for example.

Then you have things that should have NEVER been, like Centurions, all the marine flyers beside the Stormraven and Thunderhawk (not counting speeders.), All the Cron vehicles minus the monolith...maybe..., etc. etc.

Now fist bump...

Red Wine? feth off.

Might a return to assymetrical missions help 7th?
ala 2nd ed?

Me: I have to kill your warlord.
You: you have to destroy my bunker.

 Ratius wrote:

Now fist bump...

Red Wine? feth off.

Might a return to assymetrical missions help 7th?
ala 2nd ed?

Me: I have to kill your warlord.
You: you have to destroy my bunker.

Maelstrom does this, and the BAO format maelstrom does it even better. I have no problems with the amount of rules out there. I love the flavor and variety it gives. They're all choices, you don't HAVE to run all the supplements and what not. My local meta is having a blast with 7th, despite the internet's incessant problems with it.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
But MH, 40k does limit Foc choices no? HQ, elite, heavy etc?

Well, they used to, but now you have allies, formations, and unbound.

Yeah, before in 5th you had people spamming the best unit from a given slot as much as possible. With 6th, you had people spamming the best unit from multiple codexes that were battle brother armies. In 7th, you have multiple formations of the same damn army spamming the same units and/or spamming an ally's best unit. There was always spam, but in later generations it could a whole heck of a lot more obnoxious- the idea of spam became an expected part of the army.

GW used to put limits on certain units, but usually it was for fluff purposes. Of course, then they realized they were missing out on those extra Space Marine big kit sales and prompty got rid of that!

7th can be described as an excess of cool-sounding concepts but done so without restriction or structure, making it both bewildering and nearly impossible to balance.

Consider Lords of War. When the rumour was doing its circuits, most people assumed it would be for the "weaker" superheavies; nothing tougher than a Baneblade, no D weapon. Forgeworld has a huge range of "lesser" superheavies which almost never see play, so having a list of eligible units which combine the plastic superheavies (with restriction again, no Shadowsword, for instance) and the weak FW ones; Macharius, Malcador, Brass Scorpion, etc.

That sounded half decent to me, and it's an unspoken rule my club more or less follows; the standard macharius battle tank my Korps uses never raises an eyebrow, and usually dies to a few melta guns. Its firepower is not much different from a Leman Russ and is killable by anything which can kill a Russ. GW, however, downright encouraged D spam and Knights, as an army, are an abomination.

Formations are another thing; they existed in the original version of Apocalypse and, this is important, came with a points cost on top of the constituent units based on the power level of their ability. Some were better than others, but they were also priced differently, and every army had access to a roughly equal number of formations. Now they're free, but still have wildly varying power levels; take the Blood Angels formations; free combi/power weapons? Deep strike and charge? or the new Necrons; 4+ re-rolling one super-FNP for all your warriors? Super! On top of that, some armies only have one or two which are mediocre (Dark Angels, CSM, IG) while some have buckets of them (Tyranids, Blood Angels, Necrons). And they're all spread across dozens of sources; single DLCs, $50 "Campaign Supplements" which might only have 2-3 pages of rules, one of which for your army, some are in the newer codexes, or White Dwarfs. It's the worst excess of rules spread with a complete lack of balance which makes the whole thing seem completely chaotic, not to mention expensive.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
7th can be described as an excess of cool-sounding concepts but done so without restriction or structure, making it both bewildering and nearly impossible to balance.

Consider Lords of War. When the rumour was doing its circuits, most people assumed it would be for the "weaker" superheavies; nothing tougher than a Baneblade, no D weapon. Forgeworld has a huge range of "lesser" superheavies which almost never see play, so having a list of eligible units which combine the plastic superheavies (with restriction again, no Shadowsword, for instance) and the weak FW ones; Macharius, Malcador, Brass Scorpion, etc.

That sounded half decent to me, and it's an unspoken rule my club more or less follows; the standard macharius battle tank my Korps uses never raises an eyebrow, and usually dies to a few melta guns. Its firepower is not much different from a Leman Russ and is killable by anything which can kill a Russ. GW, however, downright encouraged D spam and Knights, as an army, are an abomination.

Formations are another thing; they existed in the original version of Apocalypse and, this is important, came with a points cost on top of the constituent units based on the power level of their ability. Some were better than others, but they were also priced differently, and every army had access to a roughly equal number of formations. Now they're free, but still have wildly varying power levels; take the Blood Angels formations; free combi/power weapons? Deep strike and charge? or the new Necrons; 4+ re-rolling one super-FNP for all your warriors? Super! On top of that, some armies only have one or two which are mediocre (Dark Angels, CSM, IG) while some have buckets of them (Tyranids, Blood Angels, Necrons). And they're all spread across dozens of sources; single DLCs, $50 "Campaign Supplements" which might only have 2-3 pages of rules, one of which for your army, some are in the newer codexes, or White Dwarfs. It's the worst excess of rules spread with a complete lack of balance which makes the whole thing seem completely chaotic, not to mention expensive.

Everything about this +1

Especially the formations. They epitomize everything wrong with this edition. As noted, they're wildly variable in power, many offering absurdly powerful benefits, and cost zero points, and remove any concept of unit/role balance that has formed the core of army construction since 3E.

As noted, the first instance of Formations was Apocalypse of yesteryear, but they had points costs, often hefty ones. Meanwhile the formations being made available now offer benefits *far* more powerful than anything the old Apoc ones offered in many instances, and cost nothing.

As the codecies that do not currently have access to formations get their supplements, I assume the formation hate will die down. As many have eluded to, it's the lack of balance that peeves people off the most.

Yes, the formations vary wildly from pointless to super-amazing, but I feel the actual power level of the codex supplements takes a backseat to the coolness of having some new options available. It's totally understandable that people would be upset about Tau, Tyranid, SW, Ork, BA, etc gaining cool formations when their codex has been left out in the dark. It doesn't matter that most of the formations won't see the light of day...it's just annoying that your gaming buddy has new things to theory hammer and you do not.

What GW comes out with this year will show us a lot.

 Ratius wrote:
I agree with the point AG of having to keep up with them :(

Hence my Q about it being bewildering :(
Im really lost sometimes.

Yeah, the specific example that annoyed me was the formation for BA that allows you to assault out of deep strike. There's some basic design philosophies in 40k that seem to be set in stone, like invulnerable saves can't be ignored by any means. Assaulting from deep strike has been one for a really long time (and on the very rare occasions that they allowed it, you paid through the nose for lacklustre units). Now imagine you're playing someone and they say "oh by the way, because I took a few specific units, my models get to assault from deep strike for free!" It's just silly and annoyingly restrictive in some ways.

BTW, I'm not butthurt about losing to these formations as I haven't even played against them. I just don't like the concept and we already know that this is going to result in some game-breaking, auto-take formations.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
I agree with the point AG of having to keep up with them :(

Hence my Q about it being bewildering :(
Im really lost sometimes.

Yeah, the specific example that annoyed me was the formation for BA that allows you to assault out of deep strike. There's some basic design philosophies in 40k that seem to be set in stone, like invulnerable saves can't be ignored by any means. Assaulting from deep strike has been one for a really long time (and on the very rare occasions that they allowed it, you paid through the nose for lacklustre units). Now imagine you're playing someone and they say "oh by the way, because I took a few specific units, my models get to assault from deep strike for free!" It's just silly and annoyingly restrictive in some ways.

BTW, I'm not butthurt about losing to these formations as I haven't even played against them. I just don't like the concept and we already know that this is going to result in some game-breaking, auto-take formations.

I play Blood Angels, and after the "holy crap" moment wore off, I realized I would never consider playing this formation in any sort of competitive environment. The formation, with it's 3 stormravens and 30 tactical marines, is going to cost one a lil' over 1000pts minimum. Now, factor in that whatever detachment you take to make up the rest of your list will still require 2 troop choices (unless, of course, you choose another formation), you're not left with a ton of points to take advantage of the amazingly game breaking ability of turn 1 charges from the deep strike.

I just made a list in army builder (at 1850) trying to take advantage of this formation, and it came away very wanting. Maybe if the tournament is playing at 2500 or so it'd be able to abuse the special rule, but anything under 2000 just feels meh.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Spam was a thing back in 2nd.

The difference was that the net wasn't so developed, so the community was a series of bubbles dotted all over the planet, so, with the odd exception here or there, an issue such as Serpent spam would only occur if so,some in your area thought of it.

Heck, I hadn't heard of the monstrosity that was 2nd Wolfguard spam until last year, and the overwhelming majority of my 2nd Ed games were against my mate's Wolves!

Definitely. I feel like a lot of people come up with these wild reasons why 2nd Edition was so awful, and none of that happened where I played. For example, every group of people or store I played with had collectively banned all the silly stuff like Virus grenades. There was one guy who tended to bring cheesy stuff, and he just got the nickname Cheesy because of it, lol. Everybody else just played with the models they had. 2nd Edition really just needed some polish and balancing, and it could have been amazing. A 2.5th Edition was what the game needed. Not the complete overhaul and dumbing down that was 3rd.

Personally, I think it's better than ever. Now, there is truly no army that cannot be made, any possiblity your brain can come up with you can field. Want Tau and Eldar fighting off a Nid Swarm? Done. Want an all-Terminator non-Deathwing army? Done! Want a Chaos Undivided force with Demons, CSM and LatD? Done, Done, Done!

There are people that will abuse this freedom, but those people are the same ones that abused the system that was in place before, and frankly I have very little time for them. Unbound/multi-detachment coming along didn't make everyone suddenly play completely OP lists, it just meant the people that already did that can now do it even more. I'm lucky in that I don't know anyone who would ever do that, so your experience may differ, but to me, the more freedom and choice and the fewer restrictions the better.


Although I do think Formations should go back to the old Apoc-style ones with a Points Cost attached, rather than just requiring certain units.

In principal, I agree wholeheartedly, even passionately.

It's just in order for this to be properly implemented, the power curve across and within all of the books and supplemental material needs to be a lot flatter. Nobody expects perfect, but just closer to the middle ground, so there's fewer good and bad choices and more simple choices.

 Azreal13 wrote:
In principal, I agree wholeheartedly, even passionately.

It's just in order for this to be properly implemented, the power curve across and within all of the books and supplemental material needs to be a lot flatter. Nobody expects perfect, but just closer to the middle ground, so there's fewer good and bad choices and more simple choices.

Good point. Unbound would work if the internal and external balance of codexes were better.

I am extremely happy with our choice to stop playing 7th. It has become a horrible mess of rules with 'em coming from a vast amount of sources and adding more and more special rules, the new Necron formations just being the peak. 7th is the most confusing edition so far and playing 4th is an extreme contrast.

"Bewildered" would not be the term, more like you cannot keep up unless you do illegal things to get the gaming material to keep up to date or have silly disposable income.

I liked the good old days of buying ALL the codex's and knowing all the bits to everyone's army.
Those days are gone, the amount of disposable income to get it all is too high.
The problem is now people can pretty much say what they want about a rule in a dataslate or codex and good odds their opponent does not have that item or even knew the rule (unless they play your army).
This allows all manner of shenanigans AND makes it real hard to plan a strategy that some bunny out of that hat cannot undo by some ability or rule.
I would pride myself to be aware of all armies rules in the past but 7th just broke that.
For "fluff" play, the surprises can be funny, as stated; competitive play is really playing in denial.

I think 7ef makez it to easy to cheat because it so hard to find all the rules.

zilka86 wrote:
I think 7ef makez it to easy to cheat because it so hard to find all the rules.

Explain please.

I can't wait to hear this.

 Ignatius wrote:


I can't wait to hear this.

I don't.

Not with that atrocious writing.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:


I can't wait to hear this.

I don't.

Not with that atrocious writing.

I've resigned trying to get a real conversation out of the kid, I'm just finding it amusing at this point.

 Necroshea wrote:
I'll always have fond memories of 5th. I've got my single faction, you've got your single faction, everything is easy and clear to keep up with. Now it's just...well like i said, just feels overwhelmingly bloated as a system.

I couldn't agree more, my preference is one army built from one codex vs another army built from one codex.

 Blacksails wrote:

I was much happier when Apoc was its own game and buying a codex got you all the rules you needed for your faction.

Me too, I could choose to play 40k or apoc instead of being forced into apoc.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
At the moment, formations are just bothering me to no end. Getting tons of special rules for taking arbitrary models is really silly and lazy compared to unit synergy. I'm not too keen on all the new special detachments either. Like, as an opponent, how am I supposed to keep up with all these things, not to mention that it sucks that some armies have them in abundance while others are out in the cold.

You hit the nail on the head, they're just lazy, they feel like someone put the idea together in about 5 minutes. They scream arbitrary cash grab. God I miss the FOC.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
7th can be described as an excess of cool-sounding concepts but done so without restriction or structure, making it both bewildering and nearly impossible to balance.

Consider Lords of War. When the rumour was doing its circuits, most people assumed it would be for the "weaker" superheavies; nothing tougher than a Baneblade, no D weapon. Forgeworld has a huge range of "lesser" superheavies which almost never see play, so having a list of eligible units which combine the plastic superheavies (with restriction again, no Shadowsword, for instance) and the weak FW ones; Macharius, Malcador, Brass Scorpion, etc.

That sounded half decent to me, and it's an unspoken rule my club more or less follows; the standard macharius battle tank my Korps uses never raises an eyebrow, and usually dies to a few melta guns. Its firepower is not much different from a Leman Russ and is killable by anything which can kill a Russ. GW, however, downright encouraged D spam and Knights, as an army, are an abomination.

Formations are another thing; they existed in the original version of Apocalypse and, this is important, came with a points cost on top of the constituent units based on the power level of their ability. Some were better than others, but they were also priced differently, and every army had access to a roughly equal number of formations. Now they're free, but still have wildly varying power levels; take the Blood Angels formations; free combi/power weapons? Deep strike and charge? or the new Necrons; 4+ re-rolling one super-FNP for all your warriors? Super! On top of that, some armies only have one or two which are mediocre (Dark Angels, CSM, IG) while some have buckets of them (Tyranids, Blood Angels, Necrons). And they're all spread across dozens of sources; single DLCs, $50 "Campaign Supplements" which might only have 2-3 pages of rules, one of which for your army, some are in the newer codexes, or White Dwarfs. It's the worst excess of rules spread with a complete lack of balance which makes the whole thing seem completely chaotic, not to mention expensive.

We are of the same mind 100%. Very well said sir.




I understand being contene about the sandbox nature of the game but a sandbox isn't a game. ARMA 3 is a sandbox, but I really wouldn't call it a game, It's a collection of stuff, you can make scenarios and play with or against friends, but there's no balance, I could go into the editor and spawn 20 attack helicopters pitted against a single tank. Probably not fun for the guy in a tank.

What is popular for ARMA 3 are mods, you know ,games made with ARMA 3. 7th edition is arma 3, it's a collection of stuff you have to make a game out of. The reason that might ruffle the feathers of us old time vets of editions past is simply 40k used to be a game and you could actually play it against strangers without a degree in political science or experience mediating un peace talks.

Locally, all the people that started in 7th think vets should have an open mind and at least try playing against super heavies and formations and we beat out fists bloody against a wall trying to explain that we've done that many times before, it used to be called apocalypse and we're mature enough to know our own preferences.