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Yeah random rolls for everything is just poor game design which is the hallmark of GW games these days.

Friends keep buying deathwatch and lost patrol and wanting to play and its so damn painful.

I wish that dakka got more, instead of the dice rolls taking up 70% of the time.

They need to fix the basics, but they are definitely looking like they are trying to improve. But a lot of it is just poor rules and pushing the game larger; the prices aren't bad when you look at them, until it becomes apparent that you need a lot of multiples. That's the stuff they need to fix.

A "normal" size game, for example, should not require 3 boxes of one unit type, one or maybe two at most should suffice, and the boxes need to be repackaged where you get all the options in a box; for instance if I buy a Tactical Squad, I shouldn't also need to buy a Devastator box if I want to have a lascannon for that squad. What it should be is have a "Space Marine" box that has 10 guys with some combination of bolters/bolt pistols and a sprue for the sergeant, and then have an "Assault Pack" that has just the Assault Sprues (e.g. jump packs) and a "Devastator Pack" that has two of the heavy weapon sprues or whatnot (enough to outfit a squad with 4 of each weapon), which is what makes them the Assault/Devastator guys.

Just something like that I think is what they need to look at now; giving more bang for the buck and moving away from that feeling you're being cheated in one box to get you to buy another.

Along with removing the random charts and stuff. Include them as a choice, but don't make the default "roll randomly to see what you get", allow it to be chosen to better fit an army theme.

Davor wrote:

Kirasu wrote:Until the rules and game direction changes then I don't consider him a "success". The game is still incredibly difficult to actually just play.

So true. I just looked at one of the new Chaos psychic powers. Roll to generate power, roll to see if you activate, opponent rolls to deny, roll to see if you hit, or was it see how far from a certain spot. Anything within 3" or was it 6" then rolls to see if they take a a d3 hit at a d6 strength. Or something like that. Like come on that is what 6, 7+ rolls to do one thing?

This randomness is a joke now and all it's doing is just slowing the game. Just too much rolling for rollings sake and not adding fun to the game. This sounds like fun?

I can't wait or hope that 40K gets the sigmar treatment like a poster above would like as well.

The random charge distance was the death knell for Warhammer Fantasy Battle in my group.

It was not the only, or even the most major, reason - but it was the final straw.

Ironically, it was Kings of War that caused a resurgence of folks buying the Island of Blood box....

The Auld Grump

Randomness is definitely an easy tool to reach for when you want to hide problems with your game design.

We need a complete overhaul, from what I see.

Here's the deal: I don't want Roundtree to bring a new face to GW, I want the '97-2005 GW face back. During that period, they were doing it right almost universally across the board. The games that would later be known as Specialist Games were being supported, as well as the rules errata and rules additions for the two core systems. Granted, that also puts it in the transition period for 5th to 6th WFB, but IMHO 6th WFB and 3rd 40K were the most streamlined and balanced versions of the game. The only negative was that the big launch to mostly/all plastic hadn't happened. If THAT were happening during that period, it would have been perfect.

I see that transition as the beginning of the problems. 3rd Ed 40k was a blatant attempt to drive model sales by cutting the points in half and making everything bland. There were some great things put out during 3rd, but overall I'm not a fan.

The main problem being that having an IGOUGO turn structure was fine with 2nd Ed's lower model count, but with twice (or more) the model count, it was bad. After my last game of 40k, I apologized to my opponent for my 80ish model his army making him wait so long during a 750 point game.

When I hear Andy Chambers and Rick Priestly talk about what the original plan was for 3rd edition and how GW management instead insisted on a game that pushed higher model counts, I can only shake my head. And when I hear it was basically a rushed version of a half developed WW1 game Priestly was working on, I can only laugh.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I see that transition as the beginning of the problems. 3rd Ed 40k was a blatant attempt to drive model sales by cutting the points in half and making everything bland. There were some great things put out during 3rd, but overall I'm not a fan.

The main problem being that having an IGOUGO turn structure was fine with 2nd Ed's lower model count, but with twice (or more) the model count, it was bad. After my last game of 40k, I apologized to my opponent for my 80ish model his army making him wait so long during a 750 point game.

When I hear Andy Chambers and Rick Priestly talk about what the original plan was for 3rd edition and how GW management instead insisted on a game that pushed higher model counts, I can only shake my head. And when I hear it was basically a rushed version of a half developed WW1 game Priestly was working on, I can only laugh.

That was 18 years ago. Time to let go.

I appreciate the sense of humor that seems to be coming back. I liked that GW responded to the leak of the Ahriman sprue with a shot of Kharn on Warhammer TV. Would never have happened at the former GW.

I think GW is trying to appear friendlier than befor.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

That was 18 years ago. Time to let go.

And yet it's also today as GW has kept making minor tweaks to 3rd edition for every new edition since.

Furthermore, think of the money they lost from people who walked away because of issues like that. I've probably spent $50-100 a month on gaming stuff for those 18 years and only a tiny fraction went to GW.

How many people are there like me? Even if it's only 1000, that's 10-20 million dollars! And let's be honest, it's probably more than 1000 people and some of which make me look like I'm not spending anything.

Sorry, but this is very relevant for today and any game company should take notice of what driving away people can cost you over the years.

@Frosenwastes.
I totally agree with you.
From what I can gather , 3rd ed 40k was supposed to be a tidied up skirmish rule set.(Probably would have been similar to Beyond the Gates of Antares?)

As the game devs wanted a 40k skirmish game in heroic 28mm , and the Epic battles to be covered with the 6mm Epic minatures.

As these scales are functional for the relevant game sizes.

But GW sales told the GW devs to scrap the skirmish rules they spent about 3 years working on, and asked them to develop a 28mm battle game to sell more 40k minatures. Rick Priestly openly admitted 3rd edition 40k battle game rules were an '11th hour rush job.''
And I have heard that the devs were told they could address any issues with the game play in the next edition of the 40k rules.

Then when Andy Chambers proposed the changes to address the core issues with the 3rd ed 40k rules.(Being the 40k Overfiend, at that time.)
GW corporate would not listen to him.Andy left GW plc shortly after.

The issues really started when Kirby defined GW as a ''minatures company first and foremost''.At which point the focus moved to '..selling toy soldiers to children and collectors..'Actual game development took a back seat to short term sales promotion of the latest releases.

All the time GW competitors realized that good rules add value to their minature ranges.(Gives those gamer types something to enjoy. )

Where as lack luster rules that are more expensive actually devalue the minature range in the eyes of many customers.
(GW has lost appx 50% of its sales volume since the change in focus from actual game development to short term toy sales promotion .Some may not think this is related, but I do.)

Lanrak wrote:
@Frosenwastes.
I totally agree with you.
From what I can gather , 3rd ed 40k was supposed to be a tidied up skirmish rule set.(Probably would have been similar to Beyond the Gates of Antares?)

The very first time I played Bolt Action I was like "hello my old friend." It was like playing a cleaned up version of 2nd ed 40k customized for WW2 but with a much more engaging turn structure.

As the game devs wanted a 40k skirmish game in heroic 28mm , and the Epic battles to be covered with the 6mm Epic minatures.

This goes back even further, but for a few years in the 90s, Epic out sold Warhammer Fantasy. It was the number 2 game. Then GW game out with a streamlined version that supported higher model counts and it was very poorly received.

Then when Andy Chambers proposed the changes to address the core issues with the 3rd ed 40k rules.(Being the 40k Overfiend, at that time.)
GW corporate would not listen to him.Andy left GW plc shortly after.

He went on to be the Creative Director for Starcraft II. That's definitely a career upgrade. I've noticed that is a pretty consistent result when management issues cause the loss of talent.

Where as lack luster rules that are more expensive actually devalue the minature range in the eyes of many customers.
(GW has lost appx 50% of its sales volume since the change in focus from actual game development to short term toy sales promotion .Some may not think this is related, but I do.)

Even if the people who actually say game issues is why they stopped buying represent a very small proportion of the reasons why people leave, that's still millions GW hasn't earned as a result. All it would take for GW to have missed out on a million in revenue would be me and 99 other people who have been putting their money elsewhere for the last decade or two.

GW's rules do more than just devalue the miniature range because they are lack luster. They actively and intentionally devalue their miniature range with inflated model count and making the miniatures contribute less to the overall game experience. If a cool chaos dude is only a wound counter in a unit of 20 in an army of 100+ miniatures and some giant monsters, it's far less relevant than in a reinforced platoon with a tank or two added in. Like 40k used to be.

When GW came out with those awful forsaken models, I realized that GW's art direction might threaten the availability of their current chaos warriors line, so I grabbed a few sets off of eBay while they were still plentiful. 5 marauder horsemen got some arcane looking bitz and became my koldun cavalry in my multi-manufacturer chaos type army I use with the Khador rules for warmachine. 5 marauder horsement in AoS or in WHFB are pretty much meaningless wound counters. In my WM/H games, the 5 models can represent a quarter or more of the army and have a huge impact on play. Infinity, Malifaux, Bolt Action, X-Wing, most of the Osprey Wargames titles, all show what is possible in terms of the rules actually making the miniatures feel valuable.

And with the gutting of the player base, GW has also lost one of its most important competitive advantages: the ability to find players anywhere. Now there are so many approaches to 40k that you have to negotiate your games in advance and when it comes to AoS/WHFB, it can be even worse. The network effect is now starting to work against them as players are choosing things like X-Wing for the ability to play pick up games.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I see that transition as the beginning of the problems. 3rd Ed 40k was a blatant attempt to drive model sales by cutting the points in half and making everything bland. There were some great things put out during 3rd, but overall I'm not a fan.

The main problem being that having an IGOUGO turn structure was fine with 2nd Ed's lower model count, but with twice (or more) the model count, it was bad. After my last game of 40k, I apologized to my opponent for my 80ish model his army making him wait so long during a 750 point game.

When I hear Andy Chambers and Rick Priestly talk about what the original plan was for 3rd edition and how GW management instead insisted on a game that pushed higher model counts, I can only shake my head. And when I hear it was basically a rushed version of a half developed WW1 game Priestly was working on, I can only laugh.

I still feel that 3e was the best edition of the game - some small attempt at balance, and cutting out much of the extraneous and random bull gak that ruined 2nd edition for me.

Then they started putting the bull gak back in and I played less and less.

A few years ago, as I was getting ready to marry my good lady, I sold off the Dark Angels army that I had been building since Rogue Trader.

I am sad to say that I don't much miss it - the last few editions had ruined the game for me again.

But then I was a wargamer long before Warhammer 40K was a twinkle in Ansell's eye. 3rd edition was more of a wargame, and less of a mess of random bull gak.

The Auld Grump is not a fan of random bull gak.

*EDIT* For the record, my lady did not make me sell off the Dark Angels - she is a gamer as well. But I had not played a single game for more than the life of a full edition.

2nd ed definitely had its problems. The core though, worked. And if you add in a better turn structure and keep out too much random gak, you can have a game that really sings. For example, people who play Bolt Action seem to love it.

I will admit, grudgingly, that 2nd edition was better balanced than 1st. (The random tables in both books of Realms of Chaos and all the Ork books.)

3rd ed. felt like a real wargame to me. (Though gods above and below I was ticked that they took out the Squats.)

The Eldar in 2nd edition were among the most unbalanced things that I have ever seen in a wargame. (My tank pops up, destroys your unit, then drops down below the hill so that you can't shoot it. Yay.)

The Auld Grump

Lol. I remember that pop up thing.

I think 3rd ed felt more like a war game because it was based on a WW1 war game where as 2nd was stretching the RT era design that bled out of RPGs as far as it could go and then adding even more random stuff.

Regardless of its shortcomings, 2nd ed did have the model count that made 40k accessible. It's roughly the same model count as Bolt Action and the larger side of WM/H. I think anything larger belongs in a smaller scale, possibly even with more than one infantry figure on each base. If only GW had a game like that... Maybe one that sold 600% of their original sales targets but still got canned because it was thought to be cannibalizing 40k/WFB/LotR sales.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Lol. I remember that pop up thing.

I think 3rd ed felt more like a war game because it was based on a WW1 war game where as 2nd was stretching the RT era design that bled out of RPGs as far as it could go and then adding even more random stuff.

Regardless of its shortcomings, 2nd ed did have the model count that made 40k accessible. It's roughly the same model count as Bolt Action and the larger side of WM/H. I think anything larger belongs in a smaller scale, possibly even with more than one infantry figure on each base. If only GW had a game like that... Maybe one that sold 600% of their original sales targets but still got canned because it was thought to be cannibalizing 40k/WFB/LotR sales.

For what it is worth, I do not disagree at all in regards to the scale of the game - 1,000 to 2,000 points worked fine.

Adding in super heavies, and flyers, and now the Knights... is really stretching what can be played in a reasonable space. And not in a good way.

But at heart I believe in KISS for both engineering and game design. And 3e was, at its core, a lot simpler - and actually tried for some balance. (And I say this in spite of being a Dark Angels player - who had a codex that really messed them over.)

The Auld Grump - and the loverly *POP!* as the binding on the big black book gives way.

I think it's too simplistic to say that 'superheavies' are too much for a 40K-scale game. There are many types of superheavies, and they're not all created equal.

A Macharius or a Malcador isn't the same thing as a Phantom Titan or a Manta.

hobojebus wrote:
Yeah random rolls for everything is just poor game design which is the hallmark of GW games these days.

Friends keep buying deathwatch and lost patrol and wanting to play and its so damn painful.

To be fair, I found DWO to be very enjoyable.

Anyways, I think this new GW will be more open to criticism than it was under Mr Kirby, so we'll actually see them reacting to feedback from the community. Instead of this "Lalalalala- not listening!" approach they used to have.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think it's too simplistic to say that 'superheavies' are too much for a 40K-scale game. There are many types of superheavies, and they're not all created equal.

A Macharius or a Malcador isn't the same thing as a Phantom Titan or a Manta.

I have to agree. All these things could work if implemented appropriately, the main issue with SH is that you already had a 0-10 system that was capping out at things like Railguns and Land Raiders and it just left no where to go when they wanted to escalate the scale.

Well I have to admit that I did generally see something new today...

There was TV advert for Warhammer 40k on Channel 4 (one of the four main terrestrial channels in the UK) during the Simpsons (so about 6.15pm) so early evening prime time. I can't remember much about it so it wasn't particularly attention grabbing but that's new we thought.

Even my old folks said, "erh what, GW don't advertise" lol

 Whirlwind wrote:
Well I have to admit that I did generally see something new today...

There was TV advert for Warhammer 40k on Channel 4 (one of the four main terrestrial channels in the UK) during the Simpsons (so about 6.15pm) so early evening prime time. I can't remember much about it so it wasn't particularly attention grabbing but that's new we thought.

Even my old folks said, "erh what, GW don't advertise" lol

It's not GW it's one of those things where you buy a magazine for £5 every week and get a crappy pamphlet and a book.

Those things are never worth it past issue 1 when it's heavily discounted.

Rubbish, I'm getting the Judge Dredd one and at £10 a book it's cheaper than most of the Graphic Novels by some margin.

I remember the GW\LOTR magazine by Diagostini. It was a huge hit and very good value for money. The magazine, which came with either a plastic sprue or metal miniature was about half the price or cheaper than just buying the mini from GW. It was so popular that Diagostini extended the run for a couple of years longer than intended.

I've often wondered why GW didn't repeat this with some of their other games. I guess they didn't like their customers having a cheaper source available for their toys.

Reading between the lines, I'm pretty sure Kirby held the view that only stuff that made profit had any value.

Anything that suppressed competition, raised profile, generated goodwill etc was dispensable.

Rountree does at least seem to understand the concept that activity can have value beyond direct cash generation, and can even indirectly make money, even if it superficially costs or only breaks even.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Rountree does at least seem to understand the concept that activity can have value beyond direct cash generation, and can even indirectly make money, even if it superficially costs or only breaks even.

From what I'm reading and seeing, I think two thinks have been issued as mandate, firstly that the previous administration's loathing of online presence and antagonistic attitude to 'the community' was to be done away with and, secondly, that the ever-decreasing circles of raising prices and seeing who was left still able to afford the models was not a sustainable model, hence a renewed vigor at the recruitment level (the starter boxes for armies, the kiddies boxes of SMs & Orks, the tv advertising of books, the return to some multi-staff stores).

 notprop wrote:
Rubbish, I'm getting the Judge Dredd one and at £10 a book it's cheaper than most of the Graphic Novels by some margin.

These days I buy digital versions it saves on space and is typically 60% less if not more.

£3 for a graphic novel is a great deal.

I believe the departure of Alan Merrett has much to do with the about-face in GW's PR machine.