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 plastictrees wrote:
Perhaps, I'm talking about the games from the point where dice start rolling though, and you're obviously taking a broader view.
From personal experience I can say that you can get pretty deep in to a Warmachine faction (money wise) before realising that you can't get it to play the way you want to no matter which casters you use.

Regardless of end result with WarMachine, The Buy in is incredibly cheap. That is really the end of the matter. The Starter box set is excellent. You can build off from there. I have a 15 point Khador army that I purchased for +$50.00. If I do not like the game I can stop right there. So far I am rather excited about it.

You can not do this with GW products anymore. The buy in is incredibly high and the corporation does not care one bit if they are losing their customer base to another company or said companies that are providing a war gaming experience to replace GW's own.

There have been some pretty good conversations on opposite viewpoints without the eventual verbal mudslinging going on on this topic.

Rather refreshing to read and get an understanding on what people are trying to say.

 plastictrees wrote:
I think it's less stark with 40k though, given Warmachine's ever present caster kill win condition. You can lose without moving a model, as in "game over, we're done" lose, not as in "well I'm probably done but let's play this one out".

Here's the thing, 40k's rules don't highly stress positioning as Warmahordes. Caster kills are simply part of that. Positioning your caster to provide support while remaining safe is key. Taking a hill has a huge tangible benefit (+2 def and LoS clearing), you can go inside buildings and fight and they can be destroyed, forests have massive impacts on the game in terms of LoS and speed and so on with terrain. In 40k, some options will have marginal benefits such as cover saves and possibly slowing down the enemy (dice decide) and possibly LoS depending on TLoS. In WM/H being behind someone means you have a bonus to your attacks and that on their turn, their options against you are limited since they aren't looking at you right now. 40k has only 1 unit type that is affected by opponent's positioning by one action: vehicles being shot at. Warjacks have a variety of different manners of attack with trample, throws and locks. 40k vehicles can tank shock. Warmachine has stat changes, status effects and a variety of special weapon rules. 40k has stat changes and some special weapon rules. WM has focus/fury and spell casting while 40k has random psychic powers.

All of these elements come together in warmachine to create a variety of tactical options that can often overcome bad caster match ups and having a good list and good tactics can mitigate bad match ups. I'm not saying there aren't casters that are not at a disadvantage, but there are tools to deal with that. 40k tends to be a hammer when it comes to tactics imo. It shows when lists like longfang spam or parkinglots hit the table where you don't need a good list, you need a great list, or you will simply have no options to deal with the enemy. What I usually find 40k to be is a strategic game with very low tactical applications due to rules and scenarios. I believe warmachine is a tactical game with medium strategic depth, that can still aspire to the strategic levels of 40k when scenarios are implemented.

Hi all.
All the games I listed have more tactical focus than 40k.
(The Heavy Gear rules we use were published a while back.before DP9 s re vamp.We have not used the latest rules so I can not comment on them.)

They may not be to your personal preference, but that does not mean they are less tacticaly challenging than 40k.

I did state these games were not, or claim to be perfectly balanced.But had a much heavier tactical focus than 40k.

I think the closest GW plc game to have perfect imballance is Blood Bowl,but it is my favorite GW game of all time .

Lanrak wrote:

They may not be to your personal preference, but that does not mean they are less tacticaly challenging than 40k.

I have played with the newest HG rules. A lot.
They have less tactical focus and challenge than 40K. Or rock-paper-scissor.
No game balance, it's only about min-maxing the army list by abusing the large and getting larger amount of severely undercosted options and avoiding the overcosted options. Tactics don't matter when you have a list twice as inherently efficient as your opponent.
We are talking about a game where a faction can win by deciding that it's nigh, so their high stealth makes them untouchable and they can just destroy your models before they get close enough to defeat said stealth. Without actually moving.

 Cryonicleech wrote:
There are way worse examples of games that are broken, (unfortunately I can't name them, I haven't played many systems)

Chess. If you play black, you're screwed.