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Yep and at the same time 20 guardsmen should have no ability what so ever at taking down something like a Phoenix Lord, or the Swarmlord or a Mega-boss

And yet in the game they can. Lore wise that would be a one in a trillion or more situation that would happen. However we all know its just a regular *insert game night day* battle.

It again swings round to the fact that at its core, 40K isn't trying to simulate. It's trying to be a game pure and simple in the very same way that Chess isn't a simulation of battle.



It's very different to things like historical or WorldWar games where often they are trying to be both a wargame and a simulation of real word events.

I think some of the Epic Armageddon designer's notes or an article around that time said that a single round of combat between two Epic detachments roughly represented a whole 40k battle, that seems about right to me

 Overread wrote:
Honestly whenever you try and argue what the game on tabletop simulates it hits a brick wall. Fundamentally it doesn't represent anything and people head-cannon all kinds of arguments.

Consider that you have artillery, aircraft, rifles, snipers, close combat, infantry, tanks all squished into a space on terrain that basically often simulates a couple of buildings (which oddly enough are about the size of a few garden sheds or a very small house).


Does one model represent one thing; or a dozen; or a thousand? Is that even uniform?

It's a mishmash because its a game not a simulation. You can head canon everything from it being smallscale skirmishes up to huge wars

Yeah. This is part of why my preferred versions of 40k skew towards smaller armies. A skirmish between 4 or 5 squads and a couple of vehicles per side feels like a skirmish between 4 or 5 squads and a couple of vehicles per side. Whereas a 2k game of 10th edition feels like it's trying to either be a zooomed in snapshot of a larger battle or a condensed abstraction of a larger battle. Having three riptides and 6 leman russes duking it out in the Walmart parking lot is a bit wonky, and the amount of detail in the mechanics for representing each member of a squad just feels out of place at that point.

This is why I'm a campaign player. Now matter the size of the board or the size of an army, a single game is NEVER more than a battle.

A campaign is the war.

 Overread wrote:
Yep and at the same time 20 guardsmen should have no ability what so ever at taking down something like a Phoenix Lord, or the Swarmlord or a Mega-boss

And yet in the game they can. Lore wise that would be a one in a trillion or more situation that would happen. However we all know its just a regular *insert game night day* battle.

It again swings round to the fact that at its core, 40K isn't trying to simulate. It's trying to be a game pure and simple in the very same way that Chess isn't a simulation of battle.



It's very different to things like historical or WorldWar games where often they are trying to be both a wargame and a simulation of real word events.

I actually really don’t like this position, it makes 40K feel more cartoon like and silly. When I think a keypart of the grimdark is just that the warfare is nasty, brutal and any lucky moment can swing things.
It’s unlikely that the swarm lord gets felled by a squad of guard that get caught off guard, out of position or just damn unlucky. But in position with plasma or melta, good training and little luck puts one of those shots through something important and the swarm lord goes down.
Space marines I think just amplify it, they are not supposed to be near unstoppable badasses, but there training armor and weapons push luck in there favour more often than without everything.
It’s one reason I liked warmachine as a replacement for 40K, it’s got that and even some of the lowest units could change the battle with some a little luck and good positioning. (Now everything I used to read about how warmachine tables supposedly looked is what 40K tables look like now. )
Infinity game I rember was an Asura holding a side of the table against all odds, position in cover and able to stand on an objective long enough for me to take the other side.
40K sorta just doesn’t have that like other games do, but it seems really good at trying to make it seem like it does with its heroes and everything.

I also had been thinking that ties into it, one thing I noticed in 40K especially is that so many players don’t like the first turns being wasted. But I think so many of the other games I enjoy the first turns being wasted is so important for positioning and movement, even if there is so little action compared to the turns after.

One might argue that just because the first turns aren't filled with casualties, they aren't being wasted.

In my experience, players who try (and usually fail) to maximize their damage in turn 1 tend to lose the game right then and there.

Charax wrote:
I think some of the Epic Armageddon designer's notes or an article around that time said that a single round of combat between two Epic detachments roughly represented a whole 40k battle, that seems about right to me

I seem to remember reading this in some 1990s/early 00s White Dwarf.

Charax wrote:
I remember having conversations like this back in the 90s

Broadly speaking, you have "Raider" factions and you have "Massed Battle" factions

Raider factions are Eldar (all types), Genestealer cultists, awakening Necrons, the Leagues, things like that

Already I would disagree...

Eldar have titans, they fight pitch battles. GC take over a worlds military and the scale of insurgency in just one country in the modern day involves tens of thousands of fighters.

I would think of it more what scale of forces can a faction field.

Platoon - a few dozen men. Custodies max deployment size outside of the webway war, and even then they would have operated in small groups. Harlequins.
Company - 100-200 men. Max Grey knight deployment size to fight something like a primarch, a lot of SoB orders.
Battalion - 3-6 companies. Typical max single chapter deployment, a larger SoB order. Dark Elder could do this if they really cared? Knight order perhaps. A full precint of Arbites might be this though I would say they are company size.
Brigade - Something like a CSM and mortal allies raiding force. Votann.
Division - would a titan legion deployment be considered this? Prob a max Elder deployment outside of a craftworld invasion. Wonder if Necrons tend to muster this
Army - Multiple divisions. Stealer Cult, Imperial Guard, Ad Mech, Orks, Nids, Tau.

Miss anyone who isn't a navy, or kill team sized force?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:

Charax wrote:
I think some of the Epic Armageddon designer's notes or an article around that time said that a single round of combat between two Epic detachments roughly represented a whole 40k battle, that seems about right to me

I seem to remember reading this in some 1990s/early 00s White Dwarf.

Epic 40k (3rd edition) and repeated for 4th. A firefight between two formations was meant to be a 40k battle, though perhaps more with the custom formations in 3rd.

In terms of games GW has done
Board games (a few guys)
Kill team (a squad)
500 point games/original rogue trader (a platoon)
40k 2nd ed (company)
Modern 40k sits between company and Battalion (3-6 companies)
Epic A Battalion
Epic 2nd ed half way between Battalion and brigade
Old GW card and counter games like Armageddon or horus heresy at army(s) level

Then stuff like BFG which I suppose would be division+ level in a typical 1500 point game. Don't know much about naval classifications!