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2016/12/05 00:05:30
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Every nation on earth combined equals 15,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled.
Imperial worlds, presumably a fethload more than that, because nukes are easy to make with 40k's technology and too effective not to have.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/05 00:19:00
Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
2016/12/05 00:19:38
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Graia is hardly a major world, as only a single squad of Marines was sent to reclaim it. If it were important, it would be hit with multiple companies or chapters, like Armageddon was.
It doesn't sit in a space as vital as Armageddon, but it certainly was a major Forge World. There were also more Marines backstage assisting in Graia's defence, both from the Ultramarines and the Blood Raven/Black Templar force sent to assist; we just only got to see Titus' squad.
Nuke it.
And lose the Manufactorum?
Yes, when your joke is funny. "Codex: Peregrine Owns Your Wallet" was something funny that was posted today. A Trump joke is very much not funny. It's like making a 9/11 joke in 2002.
I guess you can tell I don't usually do political jokes. It was the first thing that sprang to mind though; I guess I'm not currently in the right frame of mind to come up with something good with current happenings, so I apologise.
Third War For Armageddon, only about 249 Guard regiments deployed. That's 600,000 people give or take, assuming my math is right.
Considering those regiments could be anything from Light Infantry to Artillery, the number could vary immensely. Most full regiments would be a lot larger than a couple of thousand men each though.
Tyranids have a tendency to stage and form swarms in one location before attacking. Source: Battle of Tarsis Ultra.
I couldn't find the exact bit you're sourcing from (guess it's in the book Lexicanum sourced from) but I thought typically a Tyranid fleet will fire Mycetic Spores indiscriminately at a planet in order to maximise coverage. It's not like they ever have a shortage of troops to send down.
Even so, they would likely adapt to the situation after the first few times they get nuked upon hitting the surface.
The Imperium has more nukes than the Orks have Roks.
Possibly, until a Rok hits a Missile Silo, that is.
Yes, there are some cases where it is not viable. However, this doesn't excuse a near complete lack of using nukes in the background.
I guess not. Like Peregrine said before, I guess a lot of it is down to most factions wanting to fight honourably or out of bloodlust.
Well I concede now, don't think I have anything else to add that hasn't already been repeated.
G.A
G.A - Should've called myself Ghost Ark
Makeup Whiskers? This is War Paint!
2016/12/05 00:20:12
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Verviedi wrote: Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
I believe that my information on the scale of 40k battles is incorrect, and I'll concede that point.
No, don't concede, you're entirely correct. A DKoK siege regiment, a unit that embodies the principle of "throw lots of bodies at the problem", has "tens of thousands" of men. If regiments with millions of men exist at all they're exceptional cases, and there's no reason to believe that they're involved in a particular battle unless explicitly stated. A more reasonable estimate is that IG infantry regiments are around the 1-2000 man size of WWII infantry regiments. If we assume that any DKoK-size regiments are balanced out by armored regiments and similar smaller units then Armageddon was probably around 500k to 1 million men total. IOW, "smaller than real-world battles" is accurate.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2016/12/05 01:00:37
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Verviedi wrote: Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
I believe that my information on the scale of 40k battles is incorrect, and I'll concede that point.
No, don't concede, you're entirely correct. A DKoK siege regiment, a unit that embodies the principle of "throw lots of bodies at the problem", has "tens of thousands" of men. If regiments with millions of men exist at all they're exceptional cases, and there's no reason to believe that they're involved in a particular battle unless explicitly stated. A more reasonable estimate is that IG infantry regiments are around the 1-2000 man size of WWII infantry regiments. If we assume that any DKoK-size regiments are balanced out by armored regiments and similar smaller units then Armageddon was probably around 500k to 1 million men total. IOW, "smaller than real-world battles" is accurate.
Oh, really? Thank you for correcting me, I suppose considering 1d4chan a legitimate source is not a good thing to do. Consider my concession withdrawn until the face of Armageddon a legitimate source is provided.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 01:03:17
Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
2016/12/05 01:14:02
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Verviedi wrote: Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
I believe that my information on the scale of 40k battles is incorrect, and I'll concede that point.
No, don't concede, you're entirely correct. A DKoK siege regiment, a unit that embodies the principle of "throw lots of bodies at the problem", has "tens of thousands" of men. If regiments with millions of men exist at all they're exceptional cases, and there's no reason to believe that they're involved in a particular battle unless explicitly stated. A more reasonable estimate is that IG infantry regiments are around the 1-2000 man size of WWII infantry regiments. If we assume that any DKoK-size regiments are balanced out by armored regiments and similar smaller units then Armageddon was probably around 500k to 1 million men total. IOW, "smaller than real-world battles" is accurate.
Thought I'd add something I do have here, from Lexicanum - "Each regiment raised on Armageddon is composed of twelve companies, typically a mix of infantry, armour, artillery and mechanised infantry. Infantry and mechanised infantry companies consist of a command section, a fire support platoon with 10 heavy weapons teams, and three infantry platoons of 50 soldiers each, including 5 heavy weapons teams. At full strength a company would have 175 soldiers, though casualties suffered during battle will quickly reduce this."
However, factoring in the fact that the Second War for Armageddon involved many regiments outside of the Steel Legion, primarily from Cadia, alongside the probable need for Armageddon to draft more men from the remaining hives, there is the potential for many millions of Guardsmen to be involved.
It's more likely that the 3rd War has gone into the many millions, as it's a constant war of attrition to keep the Orks from claiming Armageddon as more and more of them flock in for a good fight.
G.A - Should've called myself Ghost Ark
Makeup Whiskers? This is War Paint!
2016/12/05 06:56:14
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Also, "You cannot take ground if the ground glows in the dark."
And, if the planet is shielded or protected somehow (such as the former Fortress Monastery of the Imperial Fists), that presents its own set of problems. For 40K, if we are to believe that futuristic "ICBM" nukes in 40K are represented by Death Strikes, even something like a Rhino has a 16% chance of surviving a point-blank hit... that's some tough armor - or something.
Though, while the IoM might be reluctant to nuke vital strategic points (preferring "throw more bodies at it, they're cheaper"), I can't see a faction like Chaos having the slightest qualms of doing so if they have access to that kind of firepower. We have, for instance, seen chaos nuke a solar system with Calth.
It never ends well
2016/12/05 07:16:12
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
I think this is largely due to troop choices largely becoming irrelevant on the tabletop. When everything becomes objective secured, there is little reason to field them in most armies. Hopefully that will change in 8th. I'd love to see more troops on the table again instead of all Riptides/Wraith Knights etc.
Another contributing factor which continues to be ignored is the army balance within the codices themselves. GW is trying to solve all of the game problems through the use of "formations" yet in the end, the underlying problem is that the point costs and the rules of the units within most codices are just flat out broken. We have units that serve nearly identical roles, in different armies that vary in point cost drastically. Other units have special rules and statlines that have been copy/pasted for a decade from edition to edition. If their rules weren't competitive 10 years ago, they certainly aren't viable now. At the end of the day, GW just needs to bite the bullet and establish a metric for how much a unit costs and go through every unit in the game.
2016/12/05 07:23:29
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
I can't say 40K is fine because of the glaring imbalance which can make the game barely playable, and the formations nonsense that is going on right now which I find poorly implemented. Strictly rulewise speaking, I think the game is pretty much in the right path (though adding Ugo Igo activation with several new reactions would really bring it to the next level) Sure it can be complicated to remember all the rules and yes there could be some refinement here and there (most notably for cover saves) but overall, I feel it works well in creating a large sci-fi war simulation with its many dimensions. I don't want the psychic phase to be a simple ld test nor do I want vehicles to be treated as MC. It would simply ruin the game's immersion
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/05 13:10:24
2016/12/05 11:02:25
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
It's fine for me - someone who's played since 4th with SM,IG and various other imperial bits for flavor.
But this is because I, and most of my community, have recognised its limitations and work within them. If I was not as familiar with the power level problem, or we had a toxic WAAC community, it'd be a different issue - and we'd probably have died out by now.
I will also repeat that 40k is for 40k games. The game as its written works fine with 20k a side. That it's calibrated for that level is the foundation of the problem I think.
Some people find the idea that other people can be happy offensive, and will prefer causing harm to self improvement.
2016/12/05 11:03:18
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
40k fails miserably at several different points of basic game design:
1) Balance is terrible. Power creep, internal balance, external balance, it's all a problem.
2) The rules are a bloated mess. GW's design policy is all about having every unit get tons of special snowflake rules, on top of a massive core rulebook. And yet 40k strategy is pretty shallow, with little more than basic execution of your army's strategy and limited opportunity for move vs. counter-move planning. So all of these extra rules make the game harder to learn and vastly increase the opportunity for rule arguments, but they don't make the game more interesting.
3) The rules have no overall design plan. Nobody at GW seems to know what kind of game 40k is supposed to be. Is it a skirmish-scale game focused on the heroes? An army-scale game full of titans and aircraft and orbital bombardments? These are completely incompatible design concepts, yet GW's apparent answer to the question is "all of the above". So we have rules for determining exactly what kind of power weapon a tactical marine sergeant is armed with in the same game as a Warlord titan that can annihilate the entire unit with a single shot. And, where good games improve with every edition because the designers have a goal in mind that they're working towards, 40k keeps getting new editions where the rules change for the sake of change but the game doesn't really improve.
4) Randomness replaces player decisions far too often. Random warlord traits, random mission objectives, etc. GW consistently takes control away from the players and replaces it with rolling on a random table to see what you get. This is fine if you're a small child playing one of those "roll a die to see how many spaces you move" games on the back of a cereal box, since you have the same 50/50 chance of winning as your parent. It's unacceptable in a game where adults pay hundreds to thousands of dollars and invest countless hours in modeling and painting.
5) The rules are unclear and frequently impossible to understand. GW believes, contrary to modern game design principles, that the rules are just a general guide and you shouldn't worry too much about following them precisely. This means they don't pay enough attention to writing clear and unambiguous rules, with the inevitable result of constant arguments about what the rules are supposed to be. Even after a massive FAQ, which directly contradicts the printed rules in multiple places, there are still arguments over how the game is supposed to work.
These are all solid points and a good summary of which areas 40K should improve on. Though I do think you overstate the effect of randomness as it add an element of risk management in the game which is something an acute mind can plan for. Yet, at the end of the day, I feel all of these points (except number 5 which GW should really work on in the next edition and 3) which would be solved easily by splitting the game in at least 2 tiers) are mainly related to what I stated : Imbalance (randomness is not necessarily a bad thing imo, but it is when a single roll is pretty much a game changer, such as getting the invisibility spell or rolling prophet of the waagh as you warlord trait in a Orkurion) and Formations (which add an overabundant layer of rules over the already heavy ruleset)
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/05 13:11:15
2016/12/05 13:54:04
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
The Rogue Trader RPG declares that nukes are rare.
The Imperium has religious rituals, not technology in our sense. If there's no ritual for making a nuke, they can't make it. That we can make them is irrelevant.
2016/12/05 14:07:11
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
The Ferrozoicans used nuclear weapons to destroy Vannick hive in Necropolis, and the majority of the soldiers on the ferry were aware of the existence of nuclear weapons. This argument holds no water, as if nuclear weapons are so rare and sacred, why is their existence common knowledge?
Also, the planet Krieg suffered an explicitly nuclear civil war. If nukes were truly that rare, that would be impossible.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 14:08:15
Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
2016/12/05 14:20:38
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
The Imperium does have plenty of Ordnance Extremis; in fact, most of it is far more powerful than whatever nuclear weapons they have on hand, such as Vortex Warheads. Hell, even the basic Plasma Warhead for a Deathstrike Missile Launcher would give a tactical nuke a run for its money.
I think most of this kind of weaponry will be used in Ship on Ship combat (not sure exactly what Imperial Ships could mount it, but I'm sure any of them with Torpedo Tubes could use them). After going away and thinking about it, I'm sure the reason that it may not be used frequently to fight ground wars is simply because even the most incompetent Ork strategist would notice that all his Roks are being decimated on impact, and instead send them straight at wherever the missiles are coming from to cripple them, like they would when dealing with something more potent, like a Planetary Defence Laser.
G.A - Should've called myself Ghost Ark
Makeup Whiskers? This is War Paint!
2016/12/05 14:35:49
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
There are several hundred (probably more) nuclear missile silos currently on Earth. I'll assume there's an equal amount on Armageddon. Even in the Third War For Armageddon (the largest battle against Orks in recent times), the Orks only deployed 80-100 Roks. Factoring in losses from the first wave being nuked, that simply isn't enough Roks to take out every nuclear missile launch site.
Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
2016/12/05 14:44:12
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
40k fails miserably at several different points of basic game design:
1) Balance is terrible. Power creep, internal balance, external balance, it's all a problem.
2) The rules are a bloated mess. GW's design policy is all about having every unit get tons of special snowflake rules, on top of a massive core rulebook. And yet 40k strategy is pretty shallow, with little more than basic execution of your army's strategy and limited opportunity for move vs. counter-move planning. So all of these extra rules make the game harder to learn and vastly increase the opportunity for rule arguments, but they don't make the game more interesting.
3) The rules have no overall design plan. Nobody at GW seems to know what kind of game 40k is supposed to be. Is it a skirmish-scale game focused on the heroes? An army-scale game full of titans and aircraft and orbital bombardments? These are completely incompatible design concepts, yet GW's apparent answer to the question is "all of the above". So we have rules for determining exactly what kind of power weapon a tactical marine sergeant is armed with in the same game as a Warlord titan that can annihilate the entire unit with a single shot. And, where good games improve with every edition because the designers have a goal in mind that they're working towards, 40k keeps getting new editions where the rules change for the sake of change but the game doesn't really improve.
4) Randomness replaces player decisions far too often. Random warlord traits, random mission objectives, etc. GW consistently takes control away from the players and replaces it with rolling on a random table to see what you get. This is fine if you're a small child playing one of those "roll a die to see how many spaces you move" games on the back of a cereal box, since you have the same 50/50 chance of winning as your parent. It's unacceptable in a game where adults pay hundreds to thousands of dollars and invest countless hours in modeling and painting.
5) The rules are unclear and frequently impossible to understand. GW believes, contrary to modern game design principles, that the rules are just a general guide and you shouldn't worry too much about following them precisely. This means they don't pay enough attention to writing clear and unambiguous rules, with the inevitable result of constant arguments about what the rules are supposed to be. Even after a massive FAQ, which directly contradicts the printed rules in multiple places, there are still arguments over how the game is supposed to work.
This is pretty much spot on.
Alcibiades wrote: The Rogue Trader RPG declares that nukes are rare.
The Imperium has religious rituals, not technology in our sense. If there's no ritual for making a nuke, they can't make it. That we can make them is irrelevant.
They absolutely can make them, Krieg was devastated by them in the 40th Millenium.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 14:44:53
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
2016/12/05 14:45:11
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
There are also all the Ork ships in orbit or near orbit that could rain down their own ordnance on such facilities; the logical place to put nuclear weapons it seems is on board the Imperial vessels defending the world, so they can stop enemy ships from ranging in and destroying any planetary defence mechanisms from orbit.
And of course, if one Rok gets through, it will be underneath any shielding the planet or that facility may have, along with Tellyporting facilities to get more Orks down. All they'd need to do is capture the facility and they can turn the weapons in them against the defenders.
If it were me, I'd definitely put them with the Navy - out in space they'll work a treat against enemy ships with their Force Shields down, and they're unlikely to get captured by the enemy if everything doesn't go to plan.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 14:48:56
G.A - Should've called myself Ghost Ark
Makeup Whiskers? This is War Paint!
2016/12/05 14:57:36
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Yes, that is true. I believe a mixed approach would be the most successful. Nuclear weapons on ships in orbit, and nuclear missiles on the surface, with the ability to detonate them in their silos if Orks enter the facility.
Perhaps some air-dropped nuclear bombs from ground-based aircraft based in the hives, for the purposes of a multi-pronged nuclear threat. If the Imperium has submarine tech (the Orks do, I'm not sure about humans), mount some nuclear missiles offshore as well. Yes, your pool of available nukes will be spread out, but you won't be losing the vast majority of your arsenal before it's deployed.
This is what people do in real life, and if 3rd millenium humans can figure it out, 41st millenium humans definitely can.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 15:35:12
Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
2016/12/05 15:51:36
Subject: Re:Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
I've had more fun playing 6th-7th edition than any of the previous editions, but I had to come up with a bunch of house rules to mitigate the nonsense the current rules and imbalances between armies create. My group wound up narrowing those down to just a few, and they do a pretty good job keeping things balanced and resulting in close, fun games. No Allies, 40% Troops minimum, psykers can't use power dice from other psykers. Been working for us for years now.
It's also worth noting that ITC has a boatload of house rules in order to keep certain things from becoming overpowered.
So, in other words, to make 7E work, you cant actually play 7E, one must play one's own modified ruleset
Even with lots of house rules or ITC restrictions, 7E can be horrifically broken, you hust ending up curbing some armies but not others. Lots of highly abuseable lists still work great with no allies and 40% troops and whatnot. Many common Necron armies that will steamroll anything nor running a Gladius or War Convocation or whatnot will do so for example, as will many Eldar armies that few can stand against either way
Making 40k work through restrictions has limits, 7E can work if youre playing with close like minded gaming partners and essentially play your own made up ruleset that cuts out (implicitly or explicitly) large amounts of stuff, but falls apart if youre trying to do pickup games or league play or tournaments.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 16:38:41
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
2016/12/05 16:47:02
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
While I disagree that 40k is "fine", I certainly will agree that it's not as big a doomsday as people say it is.
40k needs fixing (what else is new?), and it needs it badly. But it's not any more unplayable than any other point in its history, and really, I still think it's better than 2nd edition.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 16:58:51
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
2016/12/05 17:00:13
Subject: Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?
Verviedi wrote: Yes, that is true. I believe a mixed approach would be the most successful. Nuclear weapons on ships in orbit, and nuclear missiles on the surface, with the ability to detonate them in their silos if Orks enter the facility.
Perhaps some air-dropped nuclear bombs from ground-based aircraft based in the hives, for the purposes of a multi-pronged nuclear threat. If the Imperium has submarine tech (the Orks do, I'm not sure about humans), mount some nuclear missiles offshore as well. Yes, your pool of available nukes will be spread out, but you won't be losing the vast majority of your arsenal before it's deployed.
This is what people do in real life, and if 3rd millenium humans can figure it out, 41st millenium humans definitely can.
I have no idea about Imperial Submarines, but if Orks can make them, surely the Imperium might have them too. It did always puzzle me how there's not a ground Navy as well as a Space Navy in 40k
Of course, planetary defence weapons range massively from world to world - where one planet has a arsenal of Capital grade weapons, another may have point defence lasers, or just a really really big gun, much like on Graia.
Whatever they do have, invaders can and will try to find a way around it. Nukes would work fairly well against Orks, Necrons and probably Chaos invasions too (Tyranids as well if there wasn't a Genestealer vanguard to shut down the planet's defences), but against an enemy like the Eldar or Dark Eldar, I doubt they'd be anywhere near as effective.
Still, I'm in agreement - Imperial lore could do with some extra fluff explaining what exactly the Imperium does with its Ordnance Extremis. In the end though, even what they have on hand may not be enough to avoid a ground war.
h what a mess of formatting I have made
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress 
