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WARNING: Long post!

We can all agree that 40k isn't intended by Games Workshop to be played in a competitive environment; whether or not we try to modify the rules to allow for competitive play, it's not the designers intent to make a competitive game, and the rules and balance (or lack thereof) relates to this mindset.

It can also be inferred that 40k isn't meant for pick-up games with random strangers or aquaintences but rather aimed at the mostly European concept of the "gaming club" wherein a group of fellows meet regularly and enjoy some notion of friendship and camaraderie. Sadly, this seems to be mostly lost in the US where I would wager the majority of games happen in a game store on a designated night for miniatures games, and while some games might be pre-arranged via social media, it's rare to have everyone there at once.

Since we've established that, I'm wondering if there's a way to address the issue. Personally I am reluctant to start up 40k again (after having last played so long ago that I remember when the Tau were first released as a race with a one-page spread in White Dwarf written in a strange language, and having played in the days when I can remember Necrons first being released with a lord, some warriors and scarabs, and the debut of the Sisters of Battle) in part due to the 40k-centric FLGS having nothing resembling a league or campaign but basically being an amalgamation of like-minded gamers any one of which could turn up at the store. We have a Facebook group for coordinating miniatures activities, but it almost entirely gets used for situations like this:

John Smith
Today at 1:00 PM
Going to be at the store at 7pm tonight if anyone wants a game. Bringing my Saim-Hann Eldar, 1500 points.

Paul Jones
I'll be there around 7:30 with my bugs. Om nom nom!
Today at 2:00 PM

A hypothetical Facebook Group post at the FLGS

Now, the above doesn't suit me as 40k isn't the sort of game for "turn up and play" style games in the first place with all the pre-game negotiation that goes on, but also there isn't a real sense of friendship. In general I don't know John Smith from Adam, and it's a 50/50 toss-up between him being a regular patron or never seeing him again after a game. In the past I've seen and played games where I didn't even know my opponent's name; they quite literally turned up, unpacked, played a game of 40k, packed up and left without saying a word except during gameplay. It wasn't a very friendly experience.

Now that the context has been established, what would be a good way to hook the local meta on cohesive, narrative gaming? Ideally this would take the form of a league or preferably a campaign (league games to me never stuck as being narrative, but a competitive environment that wasn't a tournament) to hit the sweet spot of 40k: Narrative gaming. In a perfect world this would be ongoing for several months and encourage fluffy, balanced lists versus "Play to win" netlists.

The problem is coming up with A) a good type of campaign, and B) getting enough interest in it for people to play. I've seen in the past, both in 40k and other games, where one person is enthusiastic about some sort of organized event, but nobody else is and nobody shows up or cares to get involved because it's not the normal type of game that goes on (I find this more true in a meta where people want high point games and turn up their noses at smaller points) and interest quickly dies when it's only a small handful of people, although with 40k I think it's less of a big deal than in other games without such a narrative edge to the games - for example a 40k campaign could work perfectly well with just two players, but it's a completely different story if you play let's say Warmachine and only one other person turns up every week to play; eventually you'll get bored of facing the same person since you aren't really telling a story but playing a game, while for whatever reason 40k feels like you're telling a story even if you're just playing a random game.

The gist of this lengthy post is to solicit advice and suggestions on what makes a good 40k campaign (in the hopes of gleaning some ideas to come up with a campaign to pitch to the local group) and perhaps more importantly to figure out a good way to wean the meta away from the ineffective style of setting up random pick-up games versus having an established group.

As it stands I think that a good 40k campaign could make use of a map/Planetary Empires but encourage healthy gameplay versus "I want to win the campaign". Likely something starting out at lower points to allow new people to get started, and not going up in points so much to the point of breaking the little sense of balance that 40k has (I'm thinking starting at 750, going up to 1500). Sadly that's where my creativity dies and I'm left with not much in the way of ideas.

What do you think?

GW ran 40K competitions for many years with great success.

That said, the most "narrative forging" events they ever did were the worldwide campaigns for Eye of Terror and Medusa V.

They gave those up some years ago, which is a great pity.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW ran 40K competitions for many years with great success.

That said, the most "narrative forging" events they ever did were the worldwide campaigns for Eye of Terror and Medusa V.

They gave those up some years ago, which is a great pity.

Yes, I remember when I first started playing 40k it was the very end of Ichar IV (I think it was IV; the one with Hive Fleet Kraken), and when I played WHFB at the time I was able to get in on the Siege of Antioch. I guess I'd really like to be able to introduce the notion of a campaign or league to the local meta since they seem to just focus on pick-up games and competitive games, which with 40k is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole, but not sure where to begin or how to even figure out if people care about it. It's kind of disheartening that I'd consider playing 40k again if there was some camaraderie and campaigns going on but I don't want to subject myself to unfriendly people just rolling dice and not socializing.

I think that a good campaign has a system that gives a theoretical reward ('points' of some kind) to the best player but slight actual rewards (reinforcements, bonuses on certain rolls) to those faring badly. That way you'll give those ahead a sense of winning while giving those lagging behind a chance of coming back.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I guess I'd really like to be able to introduce the notion of a campaign or league to the local meta since they seem to just focus on pick-up games and competitive games, which with 40k is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole, but not sure where to begin or how to even figure out if people care about it. It's kind of disheartening that I'd consider playing 40k again if there was some camaraderie and campaigns going on but I don't want to subject myself to unfriendly people just rolling dice and not socializing.

It's ironic that GW have moved to placing so much emphasis on 'Forging the Narrative' while removing all the rules from the game that actually encourage you do so. Some previous editions included campaign rules in the rulebook... They weren't very good, and people largely ignored them in favour of home-brew campaigns instead... but at least it was an effort.


Instead, we now 'forge the narrative' by having psykers forget which powers they know from battle to battle, and Warlords with personality disorders that see them adopt completely different command styles from game to game. Because nothing forges the narrative like rolling on yet another gakking random gakking table.

Sounds like a good idea, narrative games are always a plus in my book, and the rules work far better when both sides are really working towards the same goal of (no pun intended) forging a narrative.

One idea might be to see if you have any kind of writers in the group, and at one 'game night', maybe try and work with them to come up with some fluff as a basis for the games. You don't need an in-depth campaign system, just try and work out a setting, why the forces are there, what they want and where they're going with that. Once you have this groundwork, you could even work (with the store owner's permission, of course) put up some posters with the campaign title, when you plan to start, and a little introductory fluff (and a sign-up sheet)

After that, give it a week or two to get some interest, and then divide teams, organise some games, and get going. In theory, the players should be interested enough in the narrative to work from there in trying to play 'in character' of their armies. Other campaign framework can then be introduced, as simple or complex as you like, and could be anything from a simple Hero Injury table for dead warlords to specific bonuses in the next game for certain objectives being wet.

Another idea might be to set up a site or blog (use Google Blogs or Wordpress, both are free, simple, and can have multiple editors/contributors) to post campaign updates, and allow the players involved to contribute to it, adding their army fluff, battle reports or other bits of fluff. After a while, this whole thing should run under its own impetus.

This sounds like a lot of work? Well, in all honesty, it is, especially getting started. But what that bring with it is the fact that, the more put in at the start, the more you and everyone else get out going forward. A good setting, some dedicated players and a mindset of working towards this story will eventually allow this thing to run under its own steam, new players can join with little more than a paragraph of fluff, and you'll get your own corner of the 40k universe that will basically become your group's playground. Good luck if you go with it.

Well the random table approach can work in campaigns, you roll the first time you use the character, then stick with these rolls from then on (perhaps with the ability to buy extra equipment for them) and let them morph into the roll the abilities give them.

Essentially either ignore what you rolled, recruit another character and let the first die horribly, or start to sculpt a force around what you rolled.

1st Edition as presenting initially was all about random equipment tables, you worked with what you got - or used point values, takes your pick.

The 1st edition Mighty Empires made a good campaign system, especially if you had the 1st edition Siege rules. Indeed not hard at all to run a 40k force invading a fantasy world to capture a castle from the natives.

I'm considering looking at the Planetary Empires (likely not buying the set though, pricey), and I've had a read through Crusade of Fire but it seemed like not much info on the campaign and more just showing the cool armies. Also I'm not a big fan of the idea of requiring a Game Master in that sense. I guess the first order of business though is to ask the local meta if there's even any interest in such a thing; they might not care.

I'd recommend having a gm who can run and define the individual scenarios, winning conditions/objectives for players as well as what tools and units players have access to. Remember - co operate with your players. No point stomping down on them, but likewise, don't give too much freedom. It's a campaign. Sadly they can't have everything they want, in excessive amounts whenever they want it. Ultimately, be fair and reasonable.

Attacking a heavily fortified position? Sure. Bring all your riptides.

Simultaneously, you could have a Game to drive the enemy off the high ground to the north? Sorry, no riptides. They're committed elsewhere. You'll have to commit other forces to the job, or else abandon the position...

Also give players bonuses fir seizing positions. Taking the high ground to the north? Perfect for artillery. Free barrage in your next fame, etc. seize the airport? Flyer bonus. Or something.

I see what the OP is saying, but I think it might be a bit easier than all that.

I mean, if you spend a bunch of time at your FLGS, you're going to get a feel for what the different people who play there want. You'll be able to separate in your mind those people who would be interested in a narrative campaign, and those who are just in it to win it. I'm sure there's some more technical way to survey this, but to me at least, it seems rather intuitive.

Anyways, once you've got those people in mind, then just have a chat with them about forming a gaming group. You don't even need to split off from the main event - you can still hold your games at the store on 40k night. All you have to do is to keep it somewhat controlled - a reasonably small group of people, everyone has more or less the same goals, invite only, etc.

40k is, in a lot of structural ways, like D&D, and if you follow the rules for an RPG more than for a tabletop wargame, then you can get the kinds of results you're looking for. You could even take the analogy more literally, and assign "caracter classes" to people's armies, and have games that are several players against one person acting as a GM of sorts.

I'd agree that 40k has lost a bit of its lustre for pick-up games, depending on the characteristics of whatever group you're randomly assigning yourself to for the purposes of that statement. There's no reason that you can't create a spin-off gaming group of your own, though, without having to go to all the bother of deciding whose house to meet at, etc. etc.

You can probably just use the tools you already have.

Don't get me wrong the idea wasn't to pick a group and have our own independent group, it was mostly to get the FLGS people interested in something beyond pickup games and a monthly tournament since 40k isn't meant for that kind of play and, honestly, that kind of environment would turn me off from even bothering with the game. When I played years ago there was always some kind of league or campaign going on, pickup games were what you did in between league/campaign night, not the main portion of your gaming experience.

If you want a pick-up game without the negotiations, try X-wing, WarmaHordes, or Infinity.

Other than that save 40K for your buddies.

jamesk1973 wrote:
If you want a pick-up game without the negotiations, try X-wing, WarmaHordes, or Infinity.

Other than that save 40K for your buddies.

Right, I already play Warmachine at another store although interest is dwindling and it's just been a small handful of us recently and I don't know how to get more interest there. I don't even play 40k right now, I'm just thinking of getting back into it because it's undeniably the most popular game (see above comment - there's been very little interest in the Warmahordes front with a lot of the people going back to WHFB) but the fact the 40k FLGS only has pickup games and not any sort of organized event puts me off because I don't want to invest that much money and turn up to play random people where I could end up with an unfun game or even no game at all. I don't really like the idea of getting a game by posting on the Facebook group, I'd rather have something actually going on.

I hav an idea forming Have you played dow 2 ?

WayneTheGame wrote:
WARNING: Long post!

We can all agree that 40k isn't intended by Games Workshop to be played in a competitive environment; whether or not we try to modify the rules to allow for competitive play, it's not the designers intent to make a competitive game, and the rules and balance (or lack thereof) relates to this mindset.

I disagree with this premise entirely.

It can also be inferred that 40k isn't meant for pick-up games with random strangers or aquaintences but rather aimed at the mostly European concept of the "gaming club" wherein a group of fellows meet regularly and enjoy some notion of friendship and camaraderie. Sadly, this seems to be mostly lost in the US where I would wager the majority of games happen in a game store on a designated night for miniatures games, and while some games might be pre-arranged via social media, it's rare to have everyone there at once.

I don't really see how you're inferring this notion, either. I think you're projecting, mate.

You want to play campaigns as opposed to competitive events or pick up games, that's fine. I love a good campaign. So if you're looking for ideas on how to do some campaigns, here are a few of the problems that stand in the way of running them.

-Boredom. Most of the campaigns I've seen collapse because people grow tired of them.
-Weariness. Despite your desire to have an environment where people aren't trying to 'win the campaign,' 40k (unlike D&D or WoW) is a game with a defined end and clear winners and losers. People who have realized that there is no hope for them in the campaign, that their destiny as the worst player in the group is assured, are far more likely to drop out.
-Lack of motivation. The corollary to the above is that people who win want winning to mean something. Even if it's a BS plaque on the wall with the season, the year, and their name/army. (I dreamt for ten years about getting my damn name on the wall at my store.) Prizes, usually universally desired prizes, are of course preferred.
-Commitment. I haven't played in a campaign in two years. Why? I have a child that is one year and three months old. In order to play in a campaign, you have to be able to make the time commitment, and people who A) have children, B) have significant others, C) have jobs without a fixed schedule, can't take on that kind of obligation on their time with any promise of reliability. The problem is that what we've got here is a hobby, so for a person with a healthy life, almost every other obligation is going to take priority.

Possible ways to remedy these -
-Good narrative structure that's easy to understand, easy to get into, and engaging. You want to run a good campaign you need to be able to tell a good story.
-Loose commitments. (Allow people some flexibility in getting their games in.)
-Keep the rules (or prize rewarding) accessible enough so that people can still stage late-campaign comebacks. Keep hope alive.

The best solution I've seen is a type of campaign we call a Crusade. In a Crusade, a set time limit (usually one to three months) is given. Players may play as many games as they like in that time period. For each game, they record who they played, when they played, and who won. The record slip is then left in a common location (usually a box). Typically, WE only allow games to be played in the store. Afterwards, the person running the event can distribute any prizes as they see fit. (My preferred way to do it is to calculate everyone's victory points, and then give them a percentage chance on a d100 (or d1000) to win the big prize based on their accumulated victory points. So if Tom got a total of three points, Sally got six, and Mike got one, Mike still has a ten percent chance to win the big prize.)

An alternate style is the flex campaign. Each week, the person running the event posts a specific game (with a points limit, mission specifics, and special rules). Every player has one week (or two, depending on your club) to get one game in under the specific criteria. Players can play more than one game of the specific type (which might be required so all the players can get a game in) but only each player's first game will count toward their own individual progress.

In any event, I hope these sorts of ideas might be able to help in some fashion.

 loki old fart wrote:
I hav an idea forming Have you played dow 2 ?

Not really. I played a demo of it I think.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW ran 40K competitions for many years with great success.

That said, the most "narrative forging" events they ever did were the worldwide campaigns for Eye of Terror and Medusa V.

They gave those up some years ago, which is a great pity.

Yes, I remember when I first started playing 40k it was the very end of Ichar IV (I think it was IV; the one with Hive Fleet Kraken), and when I played WHFB at the time I was able to get in on the Siege of Antioch. I guess I'd really like to be able to introduce the notion of a campaign or league to the local meta since they seem to just focus on pick-up games and competitive games, which with 40k is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole, but not sure where to begin or how to even figure out if people care about it. It's kind of disheartening that I'd consider playing 40k again if there was some camaraderie and campaigns going on but I don't want to subject myself to unfriendly people just rolling dice and not socializing.

Oh man, I'd love a global campaign. It'd be so great to unite the community with a new campaign every year. You'd track the stats and results week to week. And then the fluff would follow the narrative of the campaign.

Say that one year Chaos wins in a grand crusade out of the Eye of Terror, then the fluff shows the fall of Cadia, then the next Chaos book introduces some character as the Nemesis of Cadia or introduces new army-wide special rules that reflect how the campaign affected every army, for example:

- IG senior officers and ICs have hatred against Chaos.
- Chaos has improved supply lines through the Eye of Terror that allow you to re-roll the first failed reserves roll per game.
- Dark Eldar seize the opportunity to push further with raids on Imperial space, the army starts with one additional pain token which can be allocated to any wych or biker unit.
- To resist Chaos, the Tau forge a tighter alliance with the Imperium, they ignore the One Eye Open rule when allied with Imperials.
- Etc.

You try to balance the benefits out so that they're flavorful but don't really confer a huge advantage. And then you can have grudges as your Chaos buddy reminds you how badly they won last years campaign as his helldrake comes in on that reroll, and your Lord Commissar uses his hatred to stick it to that filthy traitor scum. And then at each campaign's conclusion the special rules would reset and change up. It'd be a small change, but I think it'd be fun.

One way to work one-off games into an overall campaign can be to have rebellions/pirates/chaos uprisings represented by the occasional pick up game with someone who doesn't want to be a regular part of a campaign.

My only experience with a campaign was one where the random events based on die rolls had far more impact than the actual games played kind of like the newer focus on random tables each game, and the 'leveling' was human centric in that it focused on military advancement which left out armies that didn't have named characters at the time like Nids and Necrons. I've tried to come up with a different approach since then, but I think a smaller group where the rules can be applied to only a few armies would make designing a campaign far easier and the pick up games for one-off events could still provide variety while the few complete the campaign.

Well they had a system for the campaign. each team was based on race.
There was a star map, and you could only attack the territory that bordered yours.
Taking the map in the rules as a guide. Make a poster/chart for the wall.
Sort the players into teams based on their armies. If they are available for a game, they write it on a post it. With time and date, then stick it in the planet they're attacking. Anybody available can post in that planet to defend it. You have too capture all the way to terra to win.

*edit* better keep my mouth shut.

Hereabouts our Warhammer crowd has all but vanished. The last couple rules variants released, plus no real driving force to get anything going except pickup games...now usually there is one lonely demon player sitting at the store wondering if anyone will show up to play. Sometimes there might be as any as 4, but a few of them said with the new rules as long as he plays demons they won't play him at all.
At other nearby stores you see the same thing...on a good day there'll be 2 games going, usually 1 with maybe a third guy watching. There is also this elitist feeling they give off far too often, and being welcoming to the newbie seems to only last a little while before they're told they have to go buy a bunch of stuff so some 'real' games can be played.

Cut to Wamachine crowd. We are running the official leagues PP puts out (huge support from PP in fluff, prizes, player involvement, and teaser reveals based on how well your side is doing in the fight), doing regular tournament and release events, journeyman leagues for the newer players, and even starting up an ongoing map based league.

All it took was one guy to become a press ganger, and actually care enough to organize these things. Even gets to play in them too. In less than 2 years the Warmachine crowd has gone from 4-5 semi regular guys to 20+ joining in the leagues and 'slow' days having 7-8 people showing up. Always games to be had. Always fun times and camaraderie to be found even if you just drove 100 mile to check out a new store. The casual and competitive get along and play together very well as the game can be played either way with the only discussion needed beforehand is "How many points?" and the cool thing is even the fluffiest of lists can do well.The veteran players are very good and very willing to play small games and be a teacher/mentor to the newer players while also being able to get in the shark tank when they want to
I've found this to be true with the huge majority of players at many stores across several states.

So, find or become the one that gets it going for the game you want to play.

 Shaman5695 wrote:
All it took was one guy to become a press ganger, and actually care enough to organize these things. Even gets to play in them too. In less than 2 years the Warmachine crowd has gone from 4-5 semi regular guys to 20+ joining in the leagues and 'slow' days having 7-8 people showing up. Always games to be had. Always fun times and camaraderie to be found even if you just drove 100 mile to check out a new store. The casual and competitive get along and play together very well as the game can be played either way with the only discussion needed beforehand is "How many points?" and the cool thing is even the fluffiest of lists can do well.The veteran players are very good and very willing to play small games and be a teacher/mentor to the newer players while also being able to get in the shark tank when they want to
I've found this to be true with the huge majority of players at many stores across several states.

Funny you should mention that. I also play Warmachine, but the store I go to/like to support/closest to me is the smallest of the three within a 35m radius and has a dwindling Warmachine interest; there was like 8-10 guys, now there's just like four that actively play and the rest play Fantasy. The middle store (the one I'm talking about in the OP) is almost entirely 40k but all pickup games with a tiny handful of games prearranged on a Facebook group. The third store has a lot of Warmachine but it's an hours drive so I don't particularly want to go there, and I don't think it would be right to post on their FB group saying there's also WM/H games going on at this other store (all of the stores here have their own cliques, like the close store and the middle store don't like each other and have some kind of rivalry going on which is dumb to me, I mean how many metro areas have three stores within 30 miles? There should be a lot of inter-store alliances and cooperation, not fiefdoms IMO).

Now the above is slightly off-topic as it doesn't relate to 40k, but it's interesting because the only reason I'm considering getting back into 40k is because the middle store is the largest one in the area (they just moved to a huge area with like 6-8 tables for gaming) but there's nothing organized for 40k other than a monthly tournament, and there seems to be no way to drum up interest in Warmachine again at the store I prefer to go to as they're small (only one real gaming table but they have plywood to put on the other tables when needed) and in an out of the way shopping center so not exactly easy to locate. Even at that store there's discussion about doing some small 40k (right now it's about 6-10 people on miniature night, a handful for Warmachine and a slightly larger handful for WHFB) just to get more interest and possible more people there. They aren't in danger of going under or anything (they just opened a second store in South Florida) but its frustrating for me that there isn't a lot of interest for a game I like, and some of the other games are played in the most open to abuse, nofriendly way possible (i.e. pickup games)

There are many attributes I think goes into a "good" campaign.

First, you want to reward victors by providing bonuses as the game progresses. HOWEVER you don't want these bonuses to accumulate to the point that the underdog loses all hope 2 weeks into a 2 month campaign.

At my local FLGS, I regularly play in an escalation league. Each game nets you a certain amount of points. By the end of the league the top players are selected to play in a tournament. The big piece of this is that later games are worth *more* than early ones which makes it entirely possible for someone coming in on the final 2 weeks and still be able to get a spot in the tournament... they may not end up in the top seed but they should be able to at least get into it. Keep this in mind as your campaign progresses.

Second, look at your meta to determine what the setting needs to look like. For example, if 90% of the armies are Imperial then it probably doesn't make sense having a campaign based around a Black Crusade. Instead you'll likely want to set it up as a rebellion that needs squashed - like the Badab War which featured marines on both sides. Another example would be if 2/3's where 'Nids; set up two hive fleets that are chomping through a sector while the non-nid factions are trying to stop them from meeting (ala Valedor).

Along with this decide if you are fighting within a sector or just a single planet. I like map based campaigns so getting a set of Planetary Empires tiles and hot gluing them to a board is a great way to keep track of what's going on. I've used PE tiles to represent everything from single continents to several planets. Next, each week publish a short story (500 words or less) that describes what's going on. You could have the participants send you a sentence or two about a cool moment in the battle and simply use this as a way of collating a log...

Third, you'll want a solid kick off and a definite ending. The first night might feature heavy Planet Strike games, while the last one might end up being an Apoc game. In the middle you could change things up by doing combat patrols or zone mortalis type (rules for ZM are free).

Fourth, have the campaign affect the games and vice versa. One thing I liked about Crusade of Fire was that holding certain tiles meant that you got an in game bonus. One way to handle this is to give the leading side a bonus such as +1 to reserve rolls or FNP 6+ for a single troop unit. At the same time you might allow players that are losing a game to "withdraw".. with some type of bonus for successfully extracting an army that is losing badly.

Fifth, depending upon the players you have you might consider bringing in an additional game system to fill some holes. For example, I'm about to start a new campaign that is spread across 3 planets which both Imperial and CSM are interested in. The initial games will be played using Firestorm Armada ships/rules with a slight tweak to simulate a combat drops. We've established a max number of points that each of the sides has (imperial/CSM) and the points are split evenly across as many (or few) ships as they want to be troop carriers. The ships have to make it to a planet, orbit and drop the troops. If the ship is destroyed first, then those points are wiped off the board. Boarding actions are allowed, which will define a few "sub games" using Zone Mortalis rules if performed on a troop carrier.

Once the combat drops are done, then we'll run a night of planetary strike games. Whoever was able to get the most points down to the planets will be the defender. The next few weeks will be run in an escalation format starting at 750 points.

Each planet will have a set number of objectives that provide bonuses in future games for the controlling side.

There are two types of scores that will be tracked:

1. Win/Lose/Draw per side and individual. Win points are based on the campaign week. Earlier games are worth less; later games worth more. Helps represent the potential desperation of battle.

2. Points LOST on the field, per side and per player. If you have a 1500 point army that is tabled, then your side loses 1500 points from the meter. Both sides deduct from the starting totals based on what they have left. This means that it might be better to leave the field of battle with a somewhat intact army than it is to lose them to the man. It also means that you aren't going to sacrifice your entire army just to win the single game... "win the battle, lose the war".




---------------------------------------

WayneTheGame wrote:
WARNING: Long post!

We can all agree that 40k isn't intended by Games Workshop to be played in a competitive environment;
...It can also be inferred that 40k isn't meant for pick-up games with random strangers or aquaintences

We can? It can?

Games Workshop isn't blythe to how its been played. They INVENTED GT's. So I disagree. And the rules are the same everywhere you go. 7E, being so much cleaner in its rules than I think any previous edition makes it more "Pickupish" tghan before and Tactical Objectives make fun pickup games excellent.

I play...literally...a dozen of these games and I REALLY find it hard for anyone to say this, when all comparitive games are no more...nor less...prone to dice. In the end, so is a real war. a ton of luck and good fortune accompany every victory while a fair share of bad luck and tough brakes do accompany a lot of losses. seemingly insurmountable defenses demolished to inconceivably bad timing that resulted in massive and unnecessary losses. Its all there in history.

So I Just dont know... I think people have some romanticized idea of what they are really doing here. we are building models, and painting them. and for many the hobby ends there. Others use the models in D&D games for years without realizing they even ARE for a true wargame, like I did. and others actually play it for a much more visually and mentally stimulating game of chess, albeit yes, with dice giving your rook a fighting chance when the Knight crests the hill and charges down on it from seemingly nowhere.

In literature they call these kinds of statements "Glittering Generalities". In philosophy we call them a false premise or refer to it as "appealing to higher authority" depending on how its used. On forums i think its just someone who has an opinion and wants to get back in the game and is fighting his own instinctive understanding that really...he's taking this way too seriously. It IS a game. It is meant to be FUN while competitive. And its both for those who spend more time feeling that and less time trying to get all high minded about what we're doing.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW ran 40K competitions for many years with great success.

That said, the most "narrative forging" events they ever did were the worldwide campaigns for Eye of Terror and Medusa V.

They gave those up some years ago, which is a great pity.

Yeah, those were great. Good memories :/