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I always enjoyed 1500 the most in previous editions, and 1999 for WFB (so no Lord level characters).

I think a lot is the bad management of expectations and design from GW.
Players are keen to play big games, but GW have put bare minimum into making it fun.
The 6th ed and after feels they where just trying to make the base 40K support everything, but doing it badly.
And they haven’t done much to make multiple formats.
For a game that supposedly supports these bigger games, I think it’s still really crappy at it.
I feel it still feels so bogged down despite them simplifying so much.

That's cause GW never quite grasps how to simplify. Things like universal ability names; standard terminology over all factions and so forth.

Couple that to rebuilding the system every 3 years; shifting around how core parts of the game work pretty regularly and drip feeding information through multiple publications which are not always logically set out. Eg codex are a mess now with units just shoved in wherever they land. We've also had things like power level on the card but then points weere somewhere else in the book and so forth.



GW are their own worst enemy at trying to make a more accessible game because of choices they make which basically makes their game harder to grasp no matter how simple they make it.

Oops forgot about this thread.

Yes my primary issue is cost because GW remains the most expensive wargame to get into, since for the price of a combat patrol you can get a full army for other games, not a basic starter set and have a full army cost you several hundred more.

Also, 2k feels too much with how 40k armies are. Games take way too long to play. Could GW alleviate this by having workable rules for 1k? perhaps, even if 2k was the norm (which is still bad because in my experience people will take "tournament standard" as the default anyway). Combat Patrol is a good idea but done badly, and there's nothing really in between.

The rules work pretty well at 1k. The scenarios are a bit more of an issue. What's odd is they know how to fix this. The crusade rules have additional objectives for larger game sizes. Doing something similar for the main missions would be a big boost to 1k support.

I play at all kinds of points levels from 500 to 5000+ depending on various factors and I personally find that 1k is my favourite.

There are enough models to give you a reasonable force, but few enough that each is a precious resource not to be squandered. It feels very much the skirmish game of old, two small forces engaging in a quick and lethal clash. It leads to a lot of cool moments where a unit does something really key that effects the mission/outcome, not that it doesn't happen elsewhere, but I see it most at 1k.

It would be a boon to tournamnets too, if they could add an extra round in each day, we might actually get a clear undefeated winner in some cases rather than just whose points breakers were better than others who also went undefeated.

That being said, I love the game at any points and I think that Warhammer could take a lesson from MTG here, there's nothing wrong with having multiple formats. You could run events at all kinds of points levels and each would have a slightly different meta to them and I'm sure they would all be fun, with perhaps a few balance tweaks.

The best place to start this would be 1k as it's already quite popular, but I'd love to see more 500pt boarding action events, or 3k+ apoc games get a time to shine as well.

Have you tried playing an elite army like Imperial Knights or GKs or Custodes at 1000pts?
Because I tell you this, when your army was designed by GW to run 5-6 NDKs, halverins and maybe a Land Raider, you are not going to fit a working minimized version of th list in to 1000pts. Even regular marines have problems with fitting enough tanks in to 1000pts to mak their rules work. And Custodes/Imp Knights would just not work at 100pts. Those armies wouldn't just require a slight balanced tweaks, but rather a separate set of rules/points/etc to work. And here is where the comperation between MtG and GW games falls apart, because playing Commander or Modern , doesn't come with an extra cost. With GW games you would have to pay for every rule set.

Karol wrote:
Have you tried playing an elite army like Imperial Knights or GKs or Custodes at 1000pts?
Because I tell you this, when your army was designed by GW to run 5-6 NDKs, halverins and maybe a Land Raider, you are not going to fit a working minimized version of th list in to 1000pts. Even regular marines have problems with fitting enough tanks in to 1000pts to mak their rules work. And Custodes/Imp Knights would just not work at 100pts. Those armies wouldn't just require a slight balanced tweaks, but rather a separate set of rules/points/etc to work. And here is where the comperation between MtG and GW games falls apart, because playing Commander or Modern , doesn't come with an extra cost. With GW games you would have to pay for every rule set.

In answer to your 1st question:
Yes
Yes, but it was way different & played differently than what you've got in mind....
No - because I've no interest in Custodes.

So tell us, how many (& of what types) tanks does a SM need to be effective?

Normaly the base is 3 lancers, and 1-2 repulsors. Whirlwind were a staple, especialy after the nerfs to the marine indirect. People run dual or triple vindicators, after the points drop. The DA version, their only working army, runs the dark shroud and the regular old marine flyer transport. BT were also spaming impulsors,before the last change. In general it is lot of tanks.

GK lists for example right now, mostly consists of 5-6 NDKs, 2-3 Halverins and a land raider. And all those armies only work because of target overload. The moment the opposing army can kill 2 per turn, they stop to function.


I understand the personal disinterest in custodes, but they are one of the most popular armies this edition. Any rule set that makes it harder and/or less fun to play by widely played factions is a bad one. DE being bad or GK is bad, for the players of those factions. But both are rather rare, that is why no one cares that ad mecha are boring and cost 1000$+ to play in an efficient way, or that WS players have no way to play their army.

Pretty sure 5-6 NDKs can just scale down to 2-3 NDKs the same as any faction has to cut their army in half at lower points.

Karol wrote:
Have you tried playing an elite army like Imperial Knights or GKs or Custodes at 1000pts?
Because I tell you this, when your army was designed by GW to run 5-6 NDKs, halverins and maybe a Land Raider, you are not going to fit a working minimized version of th list in to 1000pts. Even regular marines have problems with fitting enough tanks in to 1000pts to mak their rules work. And Custodes/Imp Knights would just not work at 100pts. Those armies wouldn't just require a slight balanced tweaks, but rather a separate set of rules/points/etc to work. And here is where the comperation between MtG and GW games falls apart, because playing Commander or Modern , doesn't come with an extra cost. With GW games you would have to pay for every rule set.

Custodes yes, and I've had no issue with them.

Knights, yeah I can see the point there, but that brings back the whole "should knights even be an army" discussion. They were originally designed for use in larger games only and have been pushed into smaller games to sell more models. At 1k, I think it's plenty reasonable to just run a freeblade with another supporting force. I doubt it would ever be meta, but it's certainly doable.

That is to my original point though, not every unit needs to be great at every points level. Yeah maybe the big Knights don't fit in the smaller games, but that makes sense. It's not like they can even play boarding action and that format is plenty fun as is. We don't have to try and shove the square peg of Knights into every round hole, just let them do what they do in the formats it works for.

Karol wrote:
Have you tried playing an elite army like Imperial Knights or GKs or Custodes at 1000pts?
Because I tell you this, when your army was designed by GW to run 5-6 NDKs, halverins and maybe a Land Raider, you are not going to fit a working minimized version of th list in to 1000pts. Even regular marines have problems with fitting enough tanks in to 1000pts to mak their rules work. And Custodes/Imp Knights would just not work at 100pts. Those armies wouldn't just require a slight balanced tweaks, but rather a separate set of rules/points/etc to work. And here is where the comperation between MtG and GW games falls apart, because playing Commander or Modern , doesn't come with an extra cost. With GW games you would have to pay for every rule set.

Knights shouldn't be an army in the first place for "normal" 40k, so the answer to that is "No, and I don't care. feth em".

GK you're running 6 NDKs or other OP stuff, see above with knights. Pretty sure they can handle 1k just fine if you're not bring out cheese BS.

Custodes? Pretty sure they can handle 1k just fine.

I don't care about meta-chasers and competitive people. They're part of why 40k is in the gakker right now, along with 2k being seen as the norm to allow all these cheeseball lists.

Not really seeing why say a Knight Gallant and 4 Warglaives "wouldn't work"?

I mean I'm not sure its the most fun army to run.
But then this is true of lots of things. "Here's my army, its 50 Khorne Berzerkers and Kharn. Kind of one-dimensional, but its only a game."

Tyel wrote:
Not really seeing why say a Knight Gallant and 4 Warglaives "wouldn't work"?

I mean I'm not sure its the most fun army to run.
But then this is true of lots of things. "Here's my army, its 50 Khorne Berzerkers and Kharn. Kind of one-dimensional, but its only a game."

Sure, sure, I mean I'm not overly concerned about if knights work at 1k or not. If you can fit it in, then sure go ahead.

Wayniac wrote:
Sure, sure, I mean I'm not overly concerned about if knights work at 1k or not. If you can fit it in, then sure go ahead.

I wasn't really disagreeing with you - it was more with Karol.

40k works fine at 1k points. I suspect it is the standard sort of range for younger players, who can't afford bigger armies.

Wayniac wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Not really seeing why say a Knight Gallant and 4 Warglaives "wouldn't work"?

I mean I'm not sure its the most fun army to run.
But then this is true of lots of things. "Here's my army, its 50 Khorne Berzerkers and Kharn. Kind of one-dimensional, but its only a game."

Sure, sure, I mean I'm not overly concerned about if knights work at 1k or not. If you can fit it in, then sure go ahead.

Okey so the change suddenly switches from being good to the game, or making the game better, to the change being better for you, and if it doesn't work for other factions, especialy those you don't like or care about, who cares as long as you are having fun. You have imagine that with a stand point like that, you may find people being rather opposed to the idea of change.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac 813810 11670769 wrote:

Knights shouldn't be an army in the first place for "normal" 40k, so the answer to that is "No, and I don't care. feth em".

GK you're running 6 NDKs or other OP stuff, see above with knights. Pretty sure they can handle 1k just fine if you're not bring out cheese BS.

Custodes? Pretty sure they can handle 1k just fine.

I don't care about meta-chasers and competitive people. They're part of why 40k is in the gakker right now, along with 2k being seen as the norm to allow all these cheeseball lists.

Friend, the problem with w40k lists is though, that there rarely is a mid list for people to pick. Some armies are extremly good and they can carry a lot of "bad" or outright bad options. Most people who played a few editions probably had a game that ended, before the winning person brought in his reserves or he outright forgot about them. GW writes the rules in a such a way that you can play some armies in ONE way. That is if you want to have fun games, where you have a chance to win. Now you can of course try to make bad armies that don't work, lose all the time. I had to go through that in 8th and most of 9th ed. It is not very fun. Now would people playing those single build armies love to have multiple ways to play? Of course, espcialy if in the past GW was able to write rules that allowed their armies to do that.

Do you know how every 1000pts custodes army would look like? 3 squads of wardens, 3 blade champions and that is it. The army would be more boring then it is right now. And may I remember people here that not even 3 years ago, the custodes codex could support infantry lists, full jetbike lists, dreadnoughts, lists that mixed those units etc. Regarding other elite armies like GK do you know how fun to play a GK list without max NDK is? It is an army with 0 dmg. Imperial Knights build around big knights? Well GW wrote the terrain rules in a such a way that in certain parts of the world it takes 2-3 turns for the knight army to get out of their mid field. Want to play Chaos Knights (they have a stratagem to move through terrain) with something else then 12 dogs? Sure you can do it legaly, the index allows it, but the rules funel you in to running just mini knights.

It is not "cheese" when GW writes your codex rules to be played in ONE specific way. Now you could potentialy be lucky, maybe you play one of those armies that can support multiple builds and different ways of play. Great, all fun to you. Find people with similar rules writen armies, and play those people at 1000pts, and don't advocate for the change of over all game rules for everyone.

But hey, if GW writes (zero chance for that happening after seeing codex this edition) the GK rules, the way they were in their beginings and we can builds 2-3, which all work and scale down very well, then who knows. Maybe I will say "who cares and change the game to 1000pts too".

Karol wrote:
Regarding other elite armies like GK do you know how fun to play a GK list without max NDK is? It is an army with 0 dmg.

I do! I have a 2k GK list that only has 1 GMNDK/NDK in it. It works quite well & I've had nearly a dozen perfectly enjoyable games using it both at 2k & 1k.
And it doesn't lack for damage. It just doles it out differently than how you think it should be dealt.
And no, it doesn't pile on Imperial Knights as support to do the damage. The only non-GK list figure that sometimes appears is Navigator Lorcarno (Legends, BS Fortress guy)- because he fills a 40pt void when I do 1k.

Had a good 1k game yesterday. We were doing The Ritual, so it just consisted of me funneling increasing numbers of Space Marines into the center (we never bothered to set up any of the others in no-man's land) objective, Enemy At The Gates style. Managed to pop a Venom, a Raider, 2 Talos, and a number of Kabalites. I lost, but it felt like he had to work for it.

I still think that 1k is where the game currently has the best 'feel' to it.

ccs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Regarding other elite armies like GK do you know how fun to play a GK list without max NDK is? It is an army with 0 dmg.

I do! I have a 2k GK list that only has 1 GMNDK/NDK in it. It works quite well & I've had nearly a dozen perfectly enjoyable games using it both at 2k & 1k.
And it doesn't lack for damage. It just doles it out differently than how you think it should be dealt.
And no, it doesn't pile on Imperial Knights as support to do the damage. The only non-GK list figure that sometimes appears is Navigator Lorcarno (Legends, BS Fortress guy)- because he fills a 40pt void when I do 1k.

It's good to see Locarno getting table time. I still haven't finished my House Locarno KT.