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 kirotheavenger wrote:
I've played Crusade and I'm really not a fan.

It's a lot of Book keeping between games, and because I play Blood Angels all the rules are spread across at least three books (core rules, space marines codex, blood angels supplement).

All the crusade rules really do is take the mechanic that I already dislike abut 40k; loads kf special snowflake rules, and turns it up to 11.
This unit gets +1 damage, this unit gets +1 move, this unit has a relic sword that's functionally just a thunderhammer, etc etc.

What's kf? And yeah that is what I thought it was, but it seemed like other folks were describing it in more interesting ways earlier...

40k factions are definitely more different and characterful than Necromunda ones, where statelines aren't particularly different between the units, there are little to zero faction related special unique rules and wargear it's exactly the same for each faction.

 Blackie wrote:
40k factions are definitely more different and characterful than Necromunda ones, where statelines aren't particularly different between the units, there are little to zero faction related special unique rules and wargear it's exactly the same for each faction.

There is indeed a human focus on Necromunda but I wouldn't at all consider that to be a fair assessment, since the granularity that is essentially magnified within the gangs and the sorts of rules you see across the models really makes their individuality pop. Not to mention how so many of them move (jump jets, grav chutes, grappling hooks etc). Plus all the white dwarf articles I have been gathering are incredibly characterful, with sump monsters that can climb on surfaces, and scenarios where murder cyborgs and other things terrorize you depending on what terrain features you get close to, etc. And all of this is before you dig into the gang specific House of books. The rules clearly tell their own story here in very evocative way. And there's nothing to stop an arbitrator from cooking up a scenario with a lost necron or orks and genestealers (which actually are on the planet)

I actually believe the 'IP' of Necromunda is one of the greatest ever made, at least from a perspective of how enabling that setting is for a storyteller.

I suppose it has had me cast doubt on 40k as a rule set because of these things... But hey this thread is turning me around on that, so it's doing its job.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I've played Crusade and I'm really not a fan.

It's a lot of Book keeping between games, and because I play Blood Angels all the rules are spread across at least three books (core rules, space marines codex, blood angels supplement).

All the crusade rules really do is take the mechanic that I already dislike abut 40k; loads kf special snowflake rules, and turns it up to 11.
This unit gets +1 damage, this unit gets +1 move, this unit has a relic sword that's functionally just a thunderhammer, etc etc.

Its a unit leveling system, yeah it going to have book keeping lol. Kind of the point isn't it?

Amishprn86 798461 11131184 wrote:Its a unit leveling system, yeah it going to have book keeping lol. Kind of the point isn't it?

I don't see what point you're making.
I said I didn't like crusade. I explained why.
The fact that that's the core of crusade is... exactly the point I was making.

Kf means of, but typed by a gangly baboon.

I actually love the similarity of Necromunda.
When my opponent says he has an autogun, I know what that does because I have one too!
I don't feel a lot of the differences in 40k actually matters. If it's 3+ to wound and a 4+ save or 4+ to wound and a 5+ save, it makes no difference so why not just cut the pretend and use the same stats?

Necromunda is different in all the right places and the same in all the right places.
Although I think the recent House books were a step in the wrong direction as they took out a lot of that similarity and moved the different houses to being more alike to separate factions entirely.

40k was actually better when weapons were more standard. Differences between how armies used them made more of a difference. And factions felt more different as a result.

Now, people complain that every faction doesn’t have everything when not having things also differentiates factions eg. Flying tanks, ...

 jeff white wrote:
40k was actually better when weapons were more standard. Differences between how armies used them made more of a difference. And factions felt more different as a result.

Now, people complain that every faction doesn’t have everything when not having things also differentiates factions eg. Flying tanks, ...

^100%

kirotheavenger wrote:

Amishprn86 798461 11131184 wrote:Its a unit leveling system, yeah it going to have book keeping lol. Kind of the point isn't it?

I don't see what point you're making.
I said I didn't like crusade. I explained why.
The fact that that's the core of crusade is... exactly the point I was making.

Kf means of, but typed by a gangly baboon.

I actually love the similarity of Necromunda.
When my opponent says he has an autogun, I know what that does because I have one too!
I don't feel a lot of the differences in 40k actually matters. If it's 3+ to wound and a 4+ save or 4+ to wound and a 5+ save, it makes no difference so why not just cut the pretend and use the same stats?

Necromunda is different in all the right places and the same in all the right places.
Although I think the recent House books were a step in the wrong direction as they took out a lot of that similarity and moved the different houses to being more alike to separate factions entirely.

You said its too much book keeping, i said thats the point of Crusade, they even sell books for it. You may or may not like it but thats a big part of Crusade.

jeff white wrote:40k was actually better when weapons were more standard. Differences between how armies used them made more of a difference. And factions felt more different as a result.

Now, people complain that every faction doesn’t have everything when not having things also differentiates factions eg. Flying tanks, ...

Completely agree too.

 Blackie wrote:
40k factions are definitely more different and characterful than Necromunda ones, where statelines aren't particularly different between the units, there are little to zero faction related special unique rules and wargear it's exactly the same for each faction.

I was under the impression the new version of Necromunda had much more differentiation between the various gangs, with unique equipment for all of them, but I haven't played it so I could be mistaken.

The original Necromunda was exactly as you describe though. And it was a really good game with genuine differences between each of the core gangs despite the statlines and weapon options literally being identical. The skill system nudged each gang towards a certain style of play that you had to consider at gang creation which gave enough variation to distinguish between the various gangs but still kept things pretty balanced. I think that's much more characterful than loading armies down with loads of special rules to railroad you into playing in a certain style.

For example, before GW went crazy over supplements, anyone wanting to play Iron Hands would simply use the SM Codex and tailor their unit choices to something that matched the background for that army. So in the case of IH you'd probably take more heavy weapons, more vehicles and especially more dreadnoughts. What the rules didn't do was force you to only use GW's interpretation of what an IH army looked like. One of the things I hate about all the sub-faction rules is how they remove that creativity and flexibility. Why can't I play an UM army that is drawn from the Devastator company and treat them like Imperial Fists, for example? Conversely, do Imperial Fists not contain significant assault elements to aid in the breaking of sieges? They do, but the sub-faction rules incentivise this Flanderisation of all armies so they become defined by a tiny number of core traits. I think GW should have created archetypes for the various armies in the game but not so strictly tied each one to a particular sub-faction.

Current necromunda books have basically 2-5 unique dedicated weapons/equipment for each faction, and over 98% of the possible wargear is the exact very same between all the factions. Points costs of the wargear is also basically the very same for everyone, there are just a few exceptions (with differences of 5-10 points).

Profiles are also very similar, with just one or two attributes that are +1 or -1 different, that's it.

Now comparing Drukhari to Necrons or SM or Deathguard, etc... I see a much wider gap between the factions. Even among the same armies but considering different chapters: SW can be extremely different than DA, Drukhari have basically three different subfactions in their book, etc..

Slipspace wrote:


For example, before GW went crazy over supplements, anyone wanting to play Iron Hands would simply use the SM Codex and tailor their unit choices to something that matched the background for that army. So in the case of IH you'd probably take more heavy weapons, more vehicles and especially more dreadnoughts. What the rules didn't do was force you to only use GW's interpretation of what an IH army looked like. One of the things I hate about all the sub-faction rules is how they remove that creativity and flexibility. Why can't I play an UM army that is drawn from the Devastator company and treat them like Imperial Fists, for example? Conversely, do Imperial Fists not contain significant assault elements to aid in the breaking of sieges? They do, but the sub-faction rules incentivise this Flanderisation of all armies so they become defined by a tiny number of core traits. I think GW should have created archetypes for the various armies in the game but not so strictly tied each one to a particular sub-faction.

I totally agree with this.

I think Necromunda gangs easily play as different as 40k factions do.
It really doesn't take much, applied in the right places, to really change how a faction plays.
This is what GW and players need to learn and appreciate

Slipspace 798461 11131505 wrote:

For example, before GW went crazy over supplements, anyone wanting to play Iron Hands would simply use the SM Codex and tailor their unit choices to something that matched the background for that army. So in the case of IH you'd probably take more heavy weapons, more vehicles and especially more dreadnoughts. What the rules didn't do was force you to only use GW's interpretation of what an IH army looked like. One of the things I hate about all the sub-faction rules is how they remove that creativity and flexibility. Why can't I play an UM army that is drawn from the Devastator company and treat them like Imperial Fists, for example? Conversely, do Imperial Fists not contain significant assault elements to aid in the breaking of sieges? They do, but the sub-faction rules incentivise this Flanderisation of all armies so they become defined by a tiny number of core traits. I think GW should have created archetypes for the various armies in the game but not so strictly tied each one to a particular sub-faction.

Okey, but otherwise if you don't have those rules that buff specific ways of play, some armies are just army X minus the good rules. We don't see IH being played right now, the same we didn't see them played for most of 8th ed, because the rules were just bad. Same with majority of chaos legions etc.

And I don't think anyone playing a specific faction army likes the idea of his army being bad, just because GW optimised it for play with non factio rule sets.

The more recent problem I think is that 40k has been codified "as a game". Arguably I think this a good thing but it does tend to make armies look quite similar - because they are all competing for very similar objectives.

Since form follows function many units end up having rules looking very similar to each other because its necessary for them to "work". If they don't they just kind of are "bad", and rightly (imo anyway) GW has tried to reduce the amount of "bad" in the books.

So for example assault is sort of divided into "super-fast glasshammer units that get 100% returns on a successful charge" and "brick units with DG/DA Terminator level defences". If you fall sort of in between you are likely just "bad". You don't do enough damage and die too easily to be reliable. There isn't much practical difference between say a Repentia, an Incubi (or Wyches) and say a Genestealer - the first three are just better than the last one. I imagine this will change when Tyranids get a book - but it will probably be by making Genestealers look like the good units.

Its a similar story with shooting - and just generally being fast enough to play a board control game.

As said I don't think this is a bad thing - because in old 40k you got editions where whole factions were in the dumpster because their "thing" just didn't work. (I guess you could say Tau/GSC are there now, but its not "as bad" as it was.) This did mean you had more distinction - but it was often just "we know how this game is going to go before the first dice is rolled".

 jeff white wrote:
40k was actually better when weapons were more standard. Differences between how armies used them made more of a difference. And factions felt more different as a result.

Now, people complain that every faction doesn’t have everything when not having things also differentiates factions eg. Flying tanks, ...

This. I groan internally every time I see someone asking for melee battlesuits for the Tau. The Tau are not meant to be a melee army, they have the Kroot to act as melee forces (well, when GW isn't deciding to instead make them snipers with heavy weapons for some unknown reason) but they are supplemental to the main force and whilst they should be somewhat effective they should not be so effective that suddenly Tau armies are made up of mass squads of Kroot ripping the arms off of Dreadnoughts.

Mind you, I also groaned when the Riptide was released, and then the Stormsurge. Taking a mechanised combined arms army and making it about big stompy mecha was a painful thing to experience.

Slipspace wrote:
I was under the impression the new version of Necromunda had much more differentiation between the various gangs, with unique equipment for all of them, but I haven't played it so I could be mistaken.

There is indeed a ton of differentiation in the most recent version of Necromunda, I'm not sure what folks are talking about here. There's a reason why Necromunda is considered by many to be the closest thing GW makes to an RPG. Each gang is injected with tons of character in the rules through the House of books etc. Not to mention white dwarf articles.

I'm still not 100% sure what folks are suggesting the tradeoff is when saying, say, remove the supplemental codexes for factions so there are fewer rules. Then it comes down to more about how they're played? I suppose from a balance perspective, in order to be competitive you kind of have to play them a more specific way with supplement codexes potentially, and thus you have less versatility on the tabletop, and it also adds to the problem of winning games before dice are rolled when factions get specialized to the point where one naturally might counter another. I get that. But in terms of having character and feeling like your units are uniquely necron warriors or uniquely a tactical squad etc., I think that's a bit of a tangential point. I can understand how the conversation has leaned that way, for good reason of course because of how competitive people are about playing 40k a lot of the time though. But, yeah.

Tyel wrote:
The more recent problem I think is that 40k has been codified "as a game". Arguably I think this a good thing but it does tend to make armies look quite similar - because they are all competing for very similar objectives.

I think this does really hit the nail on the head. If I could think back into my younger self's mindset back in 3rd edition, I remember thinking 'wow, this unit can do that!' or 'that's incredible, that would be so much fun!'. In the back of my mind I thought of each unit as embarking on an adventure, and building up a force to be a part of that. The very concept of balance barely entered my mind. (And to back it up, the sort of things you would see in White Dwarf and forge world rules etc. were more heavily geared towards fun and interesting experiments on the tabletop, iirc.) But because everything is a 'game' now with the threat of same-y ness, I think the potential for this feeling has only been reduced. Nevertheless, this thread has so far reinvigorated my hopes that there is still a fair bit left of that still remaining here, and perhaps a lot more with Crusade etc.