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Warhammer 40K and other miniature games are often designed to NOT be balanced.

Why, because a lack of balance creates a Metagame!

Having a Metagame means that the outcome of a game is not entirely determined by skill (or tactics), but that someone could beat a "tactically superior"/"better skilled" player by drawing a better list (either absolutely better or situationally better).

To scale them down.

1. Take the classic. Chess. It is very tactical and very balanced. The downside is, it has virtually no Metagame (other than knowing favourite moves of regular opponents). It doesn't evolve. It is very hard to break into for a "newbie" because tactics used 30 years ago are still valid today. Someone playing chess for 1 year will virtually always lose to someone who played chess for 30 years.

2. Take a game like Shuuro (by Alesso Calvatore btw, BoW Video here). It is a game that purposefully makes Chess less tactical / more "hobby-gamer" friendly. How does it do that? Well, it adds two things. (A) List-building (creating a metagame) as well as (B) mixing up the board a bit with terrain (making different lists behave slightly different in different games).

The result is, that Shuuro is significantly less tactical than chess. Different lists might not be all equally strong (and some Scissor-Rock-Paper situations might occur). Having a (minimal) metagame like that allows you to mitigate the dominance of skill/tactics. It becomes easier to break into and more people stand a chance of winning simply by playing the Scissor-Rock-Paper metagame, even if they lack "skills".

3. Games like Warhammer 40K take the last idea to the extreme. They want to be "newbie-friendly". They also want to sell toys. By creating an evolving meta-game through imbalance, they achieve both. A. Even new players can "break into" the game fairly easily. You don't need to study a back-log of 30 years of codified "best-tactics" to be good at 40K. You just need to figure out the latest metagame. B. People keep buying new units to tinker with their list as the metagame progresses.

Check this video





Note how Wizards of the Coasts uses a "10% to 15% purposeful deviation from "perfect balance" in Magic the Gathering. I don't know if GW is approaching it as mathematically as this, but a purposeful (and good) imbalance of around 10% to 15% would mean a deviation of 200 pts to 300 pts of "value" that armies can deviate either way from their "balanced" point costs at a 2000 pts. game. And that is not even accounting for the mix-up internally in a codex, situational imbalances due to missions or plain feth-ups from the game designer (which can still occur).

Also, Warhammer 40K adds dice, different missions, etc.. to mix things up even more.

I consider 40k to be very tactical. Every unit in the game can move up to its max distance 360* , and fire at any target in range, or assault said targets if in range. The sheer possibilities on any given turn for any given unit to take action provides an infinite number of tactical choices every turn.

Overall, some decisions are no brainers, like moving towards objectives you need to hold/contest or shooting the largest threat that will take the most damage from your weapons. But knowing these things and designing an army that can handle all situations is a large part of the strategy, and executing your battle plan requires tactics.

I think what games like Warmachine provide are more options in different phases of the game. Warjacks/Beasts have a number of special attacks that can perform in combat, in addition to just attacking normally. 40k lacks this, with a few exceptions: Going to Ground, accepting or refusing Challenges, which (in combat) and how many (in shooting) weapons you will use to inflict the best possible amount of casualties for a given situation.

Saying 40k is not tactical is just a blatant lie. Just because you've played the game long enough that the tactical choices seem simple or dumbed down to you, does not mean that the tactical choices don't exist or aren't complex.

This game is 100x more complex than Chess. Sometimes you face an army of 3 Queens, sometimes you face an army of 45 Pawns.. Sometimes you have to kill the King to win, sometimes you need to kill the Rooks or control a certain square on the board. You need to know how to deal with each situation you face on the table in a different manner, every time you play.

Squallish wrote:

This game is 100x more complex than Chess. Sometimes you face an army of 3 Queens, sometimes you face an army of 45 Pawns.. Sometimes you have to kill the King to win, sometimes you need to kill the Rooks or control a certain square on the board. You need to know how to deal with each situation you face on the table in a different manner, every time you play.

No. Just no.

Complexity does not make tactical depth. Tactical depth is about reading your opponent (yomi), which 40k has very little of.

Chess is all about reading your opponent, 40k is not. The truth of the matter is that, due to the importance of list building, most of the fighting in a game of 40k is already done before the models are placed on the table.

If you truly feel that way, then you will lose more games of 40k than you win. You need to read your opponent's goals and respond to them or stop them just as much in 40k as you do in chess.

Any balanced list can beat a power list if you play your list properly against it, provided you make the right tactical decisions.

 Fafnir wrote:
Tactical depth is about reading your opponent.

Says you. I say you're wrong.

Squallish wrote:If you truly feel that way, then you will lose more games of 40k than you win. You need to read your opponent's goals and respond to them or stop them just as much in 40k as you do in chess.

Any balanced list can beat a power list if you play your list properly against it, provided you make the right tactical decisions.

And assuming that your opponent is an imbecile.

Seriously, you actually think that any balanced list can handle the Necron Flying French Bakery?

Kaldor wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Tactical depth is about reading your opponent.

Says you. I say you're wrong.

Well, in a game where you're playing against an opponent, that is tactical depth. Read their actions, think ahead, act accordingly. Unless you're not playing against your opponent. If you're not working to outread and outplay your opponent, then you're not playing for tactics. You're playing for brute force.

 Fafnir wrote:
Well, in a game where you're playing against an opponent, that is tactical depth. Read their actions, think ahead, act accordingly. Unless you're not playing against your opponent. If you're not working to outread and outplay your opponent, then you're not playing for tactics. You're playing for brute force.

'Tactics' when it comes to tabletop games (or games in general) really just means what ever the person talking wants it to mean. To you it's reading an opponent, to me it's having options, to someone else it's something else.

We're all better served if we ask up-front exactly what we want from a game, and describing what we want from a game, rather than banging on about 'tactics' or 'depth' which don't really mean anything.

 Kaldor wrote:


'Tactics' when it comes to tabletop games (or games in general) really just means what ever the person talking wants it to mean. To you it's reading an opponent, to me it's having options, to someone else it's something else.

We're all better served if we ask up-front exactly what we want from a game, and describing what we want from a game, rather than banging on about 'tactics' or 'depth' which don't really mean anything.

Yes and no. Though you can argue endlessly about what "tactics" means precisely, I think there's a general consensus that tactics - broadly - are the reactive/adaptive things you do as the game is in action (and how much they matter to the actual outcome). If you make a decision on the fly in the game for some reason (your opponent twitched, you try to adapt to his reserves that just came in, try to exploit the opportunity of some good dice rolls, etc..) it's generally more or less "tactics" in a wargaming sense.

In contrast are (a) the "pre-emptive"/"pre-game" things ("strategy") which happen before the game (e.g. chosing which army you play, making your list, formulating a game-plan you want to follow, etc..) and (b) the random things you just cannot control.

Thus, if

A = "Tactics" (things you do "on the fly")
B = "Strategy" (things you do "before the Go!")
C = Random stuff (things you have no control over).

as well as possibly

D = Structural stuff (if A is just plain better than B)

, which one is - in your opinion - the most important factor in determining the outcome of games (measured across a sufficiently large number of games to weed out the flukes and outliers)?

If your answer is "A", 40K would be a "tactical" game in your opinion.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
[
Prove it. Demonstrate these much more balanced with more/deeper tactical option games.

Go to the GW website and download the Epic:Armageddon rules. The rule book and all the army lists are probably half the size of the 40k rulebook yet the game has so much more depth. Failing that have a look at Kampfgruppe Normandy (published by GW last year before they finally killed their historicals department). Far more depth from much more streamlined rules.

Even FoW has more tactical gameplay and that is cut from the same cloth as 40K.

I can't demonstrate these games to you, you will have to look at them yourself and ideally play them.

 Fafnir wrote:
Tactical depth is about reading your opponent (yomi), which 40k has very little of.

Regardless of your dubious definition of tactical depth, I very often read and manipulate my opponents in a game of 40k.

Squallish wrote:
I consider 40k to be very tactical. Every unit in the game can move up to its max distance 360* , and fire at any target in range, or assault said targets if in range. The sheer possibilities on any given turn for any given unit to take action provides an infinite number of tactical choices every turn.

...

This game is 100x more complex than Chess.

While the 100x number seems over the top imo, I often wonder about this. I mean in chess you move one figure at once, in 40k you move let's say 10 on average and those are units so there's also micromanagement. 40k has 360 degrees of movement, shooting and cc as you say and last but not least, 3d terrain. The movement in 40k is obviously more limited but flyers, beasts and deepstrike make up for it a bit imo. While chess are an exercise in mind burning, I'm not sure you can easily say 40k is all that simplier, more shallow etc.

Not to mention I'm not sure if you can even compare the two, chees create an absurd situation - units/ soldiers do not make L shaped moves or run only verticaly/ horizontaly - while 40k tries to simulate an sf battle, not realistic ofc but still much more down to earth. Apples and oranges.

Squallish wrote:
Any balanced list can beat a power list if you play your list properly against it, provided you make the right tactical decisions.

That's what GW should print and hang on the wall as a goal to achieve. I think some anti spam rule like for example second vendetta pricier than the first one could help getting there faster.

Palindrome wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
[
Prove it. Demonstrate these much more balanced with more/deeper tactical option games.

I can't demonstrate these games to you

Then you may as well have not even responded.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:


'Tactics' when it comes to tabletop games (or games in general) really just means what ever the person talking wants it to mean. To you it's reading an opponent, to me it's having options, to someone else it's something else.

We're all better served if we ask up-front exactly what we want from a game, and describing what we want from a game, rather than banging on about 'tactics' or 'depth' which don't really mean anything.

Yes and no. Though you can argue endlessly about what "tactics" means precisely, I think there's a general consensus that tactics - broadly - are the reactive/adaptive things you do as the game is in action (and how much they matter to the actual outcome). If you make a decision on the fly in the game for some reason (your opponent twitched, you try to adapt to his reserves that just came in, try to exploit the opportunity of some good dice rolls, etc..) it's generally more or less "tactics" in a wargaming sense.

In contrast are (a) the "pre-emptive"/"pre-game" things ("strategy") which happen before the game (e.g. chosing which army you play, making your list, formulating a game-plan you want to follow, etc..) and (b) the random things you just cannot control.

Thus, if

A = "Tactics" (things you do "on the fly")
B = "Strategy" (things you do "before the Go!")
C = Random stuff (things you have no control over).

as well as possibly

D = Structural stuff (if A is just plain better than B)

, which one is - in your opinion - the most important factor in determining the outcome of games (measured across a sufficiently large number of games to weed out the flukes and outliers)?

If your answer is "A", 40K would be a "tactical" game in your opinion.

That's a pretty good wat to look at it.

My last game was tactical a lot, I lost more models, my dice was atrocious like never before I think and I won, Nids vs SM. This was because loosing models or dice didn't matter that much as positioning, succesfull attempts to slow down my opponent (gambits I'd say) and utilising terrain.

I challenge anyone claiming this game isn't tactical to please provide a tactical game. For all your moaning you're disassembling anything and everything that could possibly fit the term. So i want to hear these enemies of the concept please divulge a control group. Otherwise STFU pls....

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
I challenge anyone claiming this game isn't tactical to please provide a tactical game. For all your moaning you're disassembling anything and everything that could possibly fit the term. So i want to hear these enemies of the concept please divulge a control group. Otherwise STFU pls....

Chess. Just as something obvious

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
I challenge anyone claiming this game isn't tactical to please provide a tactical game. For all your moaning you're disassembling anything and everything that could possibly fit the term. So i want to hear these enemies of the concept please divulge a control group. Otherwise STFU pls....

Chess. Just as something obvious

thank you, though one would argue this is more systematic than tactical. Situations are rare unpredictable in chess. However in theory i agree with you.

since unlike fantasy, 40k does not even attempt to be balanced, its less about tactics and more about "which is the most powerful list I can create to roflstomp my opponent and that follows the letter and not the spirit of the rules?"

ITT: People not distinguishing between strategy and tactics.

Tactically, this game has somewhat improved in 6th edition. Flanking foes can now lead to interesting outcomes due to new wound allocation rules. Heavier reliance on mobility, in addition to a "third dimension" to combat with flyers, has also made unit placement and predicting your foes next move more necessary. Vehicles are no longer the juggernauts they were before, and as in real life have to plan ahead instead of blitz straight through enemy fire lanes. The game is becoming more deadly, and because of that one needs to think of ones moves more thoroughly. That said, unit cooperation is just as shallow as ever for every army outside of Tau, and Tau only have unit cooperation in-so-far as markerlights exist. There are next-to-no units (note: not saying "characters" here) whose sole purpose is to buff friendly units.

Strategically, this game has gotten worse. The meta is becoming increasingly capable of creating armies centered around gimmick tactics, gimmicks which the rules almost encourage. The repeated mentions of "creating a narrative" essentially lays bare the fact that GW recognizes these imbalances and relies on the honor system to prevent meta. Which definitely doesn't work in tournaments.

Xyrael wrote:
There are next-to-no units (note: not saying "characters" here) whose sole purpose is to buff friendly units.

whoops

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
since unlike fantasy, 40k does not even attempt to be balanced, its less about tactics and more about "which is the most powerful list I can create to roflstomp my opponent and that follows the letter and not the spirit of the rules?"

cause magic is balanced in fantasy... right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Xyrael wrote:
ITT: People not distinguishing between strategy and tactics.

Tactically, this game has somewhat improved in 6th edition. Flanking foes can now lead to interesting outcomes due to new wound allocation rules. Heavier reliance on mobility, in addition to a "third dimension" to combat with flyers, has also made unit placement and predicting your foes next move more necessary. Vehicles are no longer the juggernauts they were before, and as in real life have to plan ahead instead of blitz straight through enemy fire lanes. The game is becoming more deadly, and because of that one needs to think of ones moves more thoroughly. That said, unit cooperation is just as shallow as ever for every army outside of Tau, and Tau only have unit cooperation in-so-far as markerlights exist. There are next-to-no units (note: not saying "characters" here) whose sole purpose is to buff friendly units.

Strategically, this game has gotten worse. The meta is becoming increasingly capable of creating armies centered around gimmick tactics, gimmicks which the rules almost encourage. The repeated mentions of "creating a narrative" essentially lays bare the fact that GW recognizes these imbalances and relies on the honor system to prevent meta. Which definitely doesn't work in tournaments.

i agree whole whole-heartedly here, since it creates a meta game in ways.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Warhammer 40K and other miniature games are often designed to NOT be balanced.

Why, because a lack of balance creates a Metagame!

Having a Metagame means that the outcome of a game is not entirely determined by skill (or tactics), but that someone could beat a "tactically superior"/"better skilled" player by drawing a better list (either absolutely better or situationally better).

To scale them down.

1. Take the classic. Chess. It is very tactical and very balanced. The downside is, it has virtually no Metagame (other than knowing favourite moves of regular opponents). It doesn't evolve. It is very hard to break into for a "newbie" because tactics used 30 years ago are still valid today. Someone playing chess for 1 year will virtually always lose to someone who played chess for 30 years.

I'm a chess player myself and I have to disagree with you. Chess evolves pretty quickly and assessments change. If you play chess competitively in closed tournaments (as opposed to open, where all players are allowed) you must research almost as vigorously as the average professor for the newest novelties and if possible come up with some yourself. And very young players can beat very experienced players-there are many such prodigies in chess history: Capablanca, Reshevsky, Fischer, Bacrot, Karjakin and Carlsen are the first that come to mind. Talent outshines experience quite solidly. Chess is the perfect boardgame, except it's hard to find someone to play with casually if you're very good, and vice versa. That's its weakness-lack of competition between the master and the initiate. And the fact that you can't sell more chess sets because theory has developed further. You're right about the main point though, 40k does that by making OP armies (everybody loves GK) that can take the best player in the world without too much fuss.

And is 40k more tactical in 6th? I don't think so. Quite the contrary, it's more strategic, since list building has become much more important than judgment, with pre-measuring allowed and tactics being less of an issue than they used to be.

For those of you who think chess is tactical i present the most amazing and hilarious comparison. You think chess is tactical and i agree in essence it is but here is proof you can copy working strategies from things like chess to challenge people who are considered it's masters.

When you create balance or systems of like movement you create easy ways to win regardless of what you are doing. You don't need to understand the game to win you just need to know the play by play.

40k is actually better about these things with randomization different terms of movement and no grantees (a knight wins because he "charges" the rook) it becomes apparent that spectrum and depth of sound "TACTICAL" descisions is apparent. As an ork player its consider smart to charge ...always but i disagree, new aspects such as power weapons, challenges, overwatch, counter attack or even down to just simple armor saves are all problems we need to consider even with such high probability through gunfire and assault we just aren't built to know for sure if we can win anything we do we must think about what happens during and after charges.

For all of you out there who want to squat and push out a brown nugget of wisdom on the tactical significance of this game I politely ask you to go moan about something like TMNT being aliens in the new movie, How bad the spiderman movies are, or whatever new sorce of negativism you can latch onto. but the idea that 40k doesn't make you think tactically comes from people who either haven't played in years or simply suck at the game. Yes their is metagames, yes there isn't true balance but none of this stops an intelligent mind from winning it just narrows the probability. A true lover of this game will quickly learn how to play and overcome even the most powerful codexes by seeking advice and studying their abilities.

Until then continue a game which allows emulation to mean skill