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So I keep looking at my models and thinking, 'I should paint them and play the game.' But then I come on here and get reminded that everything is so powerful these days it's not really worth the effort.
Admittedly some of my information is Internet hyperbole (I haven't actually played since 5th on the table, and 6th on vassal) but for example Necrons. I envisage turning up and watching as I fail to remove more than a couple of units and remove most of mine.
Or coming up against several flyers and getting stomped by my lack of AA.
Or coming up against 2-3 Knights.
Or any IoM army and getting something dropped next to me that wipes out a third of my army.
(Obviously I am slightly over exaggerating this by you get the point.)

Does anyone else just miss that days when you could turn up with anything and not worry too much about being completely outclassed?

It also just seems that everything is geared towards getting things off the table pronto.

Anyone else feel this way?

Nope

I feel like people who feel the way you do are just looking at the past through rose tinted glasses and have forgotten that the game has always had armies that gave you little to no chance of winning unless you brought something similar

Possibly I am looking at it through tinted glasses. My army used to always lose against my friend's.

"Or any IoM army and getting something dropped next to me that wipes out a third of my army. "

You can stop that with army setup.

If you haven't actually played it then how do you know that the stuff you've listed is a problem?

None of the problems you listed are actually hard to deal with.

The interwebs can be negative in the extreme. People take the worst problem about a game and turn it into some kind of world-ending, rage inducing issue.

In actual games, I find, at least, people to be pretty cool and fun to play with, even total strangers. Of course the game is better with friends, but so are FPS and RTS on PC/console.

Now, if you were always losing against your friends in the past, you may want to ask yourself why that is so. Is it that they are better tacticians? Is it your list Ask for help and watch other people's games. The common strategies are pretty prevalent. If you are losing EVERY game, it probably isn't your faction, but it could be your list (though certainly there are bad matchups).

Finally, if you don't feel like upping your game, and winning is important to you, TT war games are probably not your thing. The learning and preparation curve can take a lot of time. Just keep in mind that if you went to your local chess club as a neophyte, you would lose most (or all) of your games if you didn't take the time to read and study the game; likewise with a TCG like Magic. Go spend $100 on cards and try playing the game against regulars who play with their competitive decks and you'll hate the game.

The power creep is very real, and in my opinion, negatively impacting the game.

I'm all for a gradual shift or change, but with GW's one codex at a time release schedule, the power creep is more to do with whatever faction gets lucky to have something new and powerful.

Not all factions have the tools within their books to deal with a number of threats in the game (efficiently), and allies/unbound/other force org shenanigans are a poor excuse.

The only thing keeping me excited is a certain company I buy my models from (not GW) and that I might have convinced some friends to invest in wargames of various sorts, including 40k in a limited amount.

The game *has* always had certain overpowered builds and armies.

That said, the game the game is in a pretty insane place right now, and has never had the extreme it does now making for the impossibility of Take All Comers lists for many factions.

Essentially the core game is turning into what Apocalypse was, and that has some real issues.

 Talys wrote:
The interwebs can be negative in the extreme. People take the worst problem about a game and turn it into some kind of world-ending, rage inducing issue.

In actual games, I find, at least, people to be pretty cool and fun to play with, even total strangers. Of course the game is better with friends, but so are FPS and RTS on PC/console.

Now, if you were always losing against your friends in the past, you may want to ask yourself why that is so. Is it that they are better tacticians? Is it your list Ask for help and watch other people's games. The common strategies are pretty prevalent. If you are losing EVERY game, it probably isn't your faction, but it could be your list (though certainly there are bad matchups).

Finally, if you don't feel like upping your game, and winning is important to you, TT war games are probably not your thing. The learning and preparation curve can take a lot of time. Just keep in mind that if you went to your local chess club as a neophyte, you would lose most (or all) of your games if you didn't take the time to read and study the game; likewise with a TCG like Magic. Go spend $100 on cards and try playing the game against regulars who play with their competitive decks and you'll hate the game.

Talys has said my opinion perfectly. Just go out to your FLGS and play a game. Whatever you do, do not let the internet convince you to not play your favorite army.

There are 4 main elements of cheese right now that bother me.

1 is FMC - they can't be killed in any consistent way when they are spammed.

2 is many psykers buffing 1 super squad. This is simply to powerful but everyone has access to it for the most part. Also a lot of their spells are clearly out of line invisibility/endurance are the two that bother me the most.

3 is putting cheap suicide allies in drop pods - always get more than their points back and impossible to counter.

4 is taking an entire army of imperial knights (nothing can really beat this on a consistent basis)

The problem is TAC.

I can build a list that can fight 100 boyz at 750 pts, but that same list won't stand a chance against 2 Knights.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The problem is TAC.

I can build a list that can fight 100 boyz at 750 pts, but that same list won't stand a chance against 2 Knights.

I agree with this statement. The game has gone too far in trying incorporate too many things. You have regular foot soldiers occupying the same table as fighter aircraft and baby titans. It is trying to be too many things at once. It is still enjoyable as long as both opponents agree to what kind of game they want before making the army lists which is a huge problem for pickup games. Otherwise it is just rock-paper-scissors.

I think it's the whole TAC thing. It's really hard to do. Again I do feel my opinion is slanted a bit by not having played for a while.

Well, if you are afraid to lose you will never win.
If you think your current units are not powerful enough, buy some heavy toys such as flyers or a knight.

Alternatively, you could play Kill Team and only have to worry about infantry. Really nice alternative (and free!) Kill Team rules can be found here: http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.nl/p/kill-team-rules.html

Well, do you see how many peoples advice is to buy the new biggest kits out there in order to compete more often? That should answer your question right there. TAC is a thing of the past, all your games are either going to be one sided or require you to speak with your opponent in advance in order to set up a more balanced game. The group I play with is pretty laid back and doesn't attempt to power game that much but my father can not stop himself from going out and buying a new big toy. So one day he started running knights and quickly realized that the game became less fun because you can just roll right over an opponent if they didn't bring just the right list.

Boniface wrote:
It also just seems that everything is geared towards getting things off the table pronto.

Anyone else feel this way?

I've felt the opposite way, actually. I'm so bored of facing draigo/massed storm shields and decurion/wraiths because nothing ever happens during my turns. It becomes a cycle of sitting through long shooting phases where 1/4 of my army dies without getting to fight back then throwing some dice around to put one wound on the same unit of cheese that just cycles around every turn and never loses steam. I could take net lists every game but then I'd be bored from playing a cookie cutter flavorless list every game.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, if you are afraid to lose you will never win.
If you think your current units are not powerful enough, buy some heavy toys such as flyers or a knight.

Alternatively, you could play Kill Team and only have to worry about infantry. Really nice alternative (and free!) Kill Team rules can be found here: http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.nl/p/kill-team-rules.html

I'm not sure how many people are afraid to lose. Mostly it would be (at least for me) what is the point if it isn't fun? Going out and buying new bigger toys isn't always an option for everyone. Myself - I think the $7500 worth of stuff I already own should be sufficient for "fun". I like the new models just as much as the next guy. I just don't think fun means spending $400 every time a new codex comes out. For someone like myself who has 10+ armies it gets kinda expensive. I used to be that guy who bought every codex as soon as it came out. I had to draw the line at the end of 5th. Especially when the books cost as much as they do. Unfortunately this is a hobby created my an entity that seems to have lost its way ever since the company went public. It is now just the money that drives them as opposed to someone's passion for the hobby. I can't blame them for trying to make money obviously, I just wish it wasn't at the expense of the old timers who have been loyal and around since the beginning. Free codex rules in a 20 page or less pdf format would be a great start. Save the $50 books for fluff and collecting. Especially went they go obsolete every 4 years.

And kill team is great, but next to impossible for a pickup game. People all want to play with their new toys.

I must agree that I can see where he is coming from. I have only played a few games with a couple of friends which have been great matchups but the armies don't seem to involve a lot of what I'd say are "exotic" elements of 40K. I do remember going to a GW store and watching a couple guys play, one was using Centurions and literally rolling a bucket full of dice and the opponent was removing models with a dustpan and brush (exaggeration of the latter, but you get the point). Just looked overkill and that was just a single mild example.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, if you are afraid to lose you will never win.
If you think your current units are not powerful enough, buy some heavy toys such as flyers or a knight.

Alternatively, you could play Kill Team and only have to worry about infantry. Really nice alternative (and free!) Kill Team rules can be found here: http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.nl/p/kill-team-rules.html

The idea that you need to get a Knight or a flyer or "heavy toys" is the main problem with 40K. I hate the knights, most flyers, and really don't want to ally in anybody for heavy guns. My army is "insert single name here" Not "insert name here, with a side of this and a helping of that, with a few of those on the side." That is total BS and is killing the identity of the game. There used to be pride in playing Orks, SW, sisters, "insert single name here" army. It was my army damn it. And I lived and died by what the codex brought. My army actually had holes that I had to use tactics to circumvent. It was what made the game fun. Now its he who brings the most of the most expensive models wins. Your no longer fighting with your talents and wits. Just your wallet.

 Talys wrote:
The interwebs can be negative in the extreme. People take the worst problem about a game and turn it into some kind of world-ending, rage inducing issue.

In actual games, I find, at least, people to be pretty cool and fun to play with, even total strangers. Of course the game is better with friends, but so are FPS and RTS on PC/console.

Now, if you were always losing against your friends in the past, you may want to ask yourself why that is so. Is it that they are better tacticians? Is it your list Ask for help and watch other people's games. The common strategies are pretty prevalent. If you are losing EVERY game, it probably isn't your faction, but it could be your list (though certainly there are bad matchups).

Finally, if you don't feel like upping your game, and winning is important to you, TT war games are probably not your thing. The learning and preparation curve can take a lot of time. Just keep in mind that if you went to your local chess club as a neophyte, you would lose most (or all) of your games if you didn't take the time to read and study the game; likewise with a TCG like Magic. Go spend $100 on cards and try playing the game against regulars who play with their competitive decks and you'll hate the game.

only for a 100$ your probably going to play a draft. With w40k you spend 800+$ and can end up with an unworking army after a year or two. And while if someone is always losing and keeps losing in a new edition, may not be much more then an indicator that his skills are low, it is totaly the opposit if someone who had fun and was winning games suddenly ends up with 800$ of not working crap. Worse while in CCG one can resell stuff, the market for bad armies does not realy exist.

@Malumba -- that's hyperbole. Sure some units get better and others worse between editions, bit nobody has an $800 army that was winning games turn into recycling during a 2 year cycle.

The most changes that have happened were to Necron and Dark Eldar. Sure, SOME models will be replaced, but not $800 worth, unless you were playing unbound spam.

Even Blood Angels, when DC were move from Troops -- it hardly made them unplayable. At the same time they got a lot cheaper. And that was 4.5 years later.

 Jayden63 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, if you are afraid to lose you will never win.
If you think your current units are not powerful enough, buy some heavy toys such as flyers or a knight.

Alternatively, you could play Kill Team and only have to worry about infantry. Really nice alternative (and free!) Kill Team rules can be found here: http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.nl/p/kill-team-rules.html

The idea that you need to get a Knight or a flyer or "heavy toys" is the main problem with 40K. I hate the knights, most flyers, and really don't want to ally in anybody for heavy guns. My army is "insert single name here" Not "insert name here, with a side of this and a helping of that, with a few of those on the side." That is total BS and is killing the identity of the game. There used to be pride in playing Orks, SW, sisters, "insert single name here" army. It was my army damn it. And I lived and died by what the codex brought. My army actually had holes that I had to use tactics to circumvent. It was what made the game fun. Now its he who brings the most of the most expensive models wins. Your no longer fighting with your talents and wits. Just your wallet.

Very well stated.

It is my sincere opinion that, having played against Knights several times [and sometimes several Knights at once] that the only solution to a Knight is another Knight. They shoot at other stuff, meet in the middle, and wreck each other. Every time I've seen them face off, that's exactly what happened. The winner was the guy that spent the least amount of effort trying to kill the opposing Knight with anything except his own Knight. BC Shells were dropped all over everything, and on turn 3 the Knights met and exploded each other.

"Wasn't that fun? We could have each saved 375 points, and not had to remove 1/4 of our force to unanswerable attacks."

Yeah, I don't have fun facing more than one, and even then they aren't "Fun" to play against, just not overwhelmingly depressing to fight. I quit playing Warhammer back when Heroes started having 3 saves, a big weapon of Doom, riding whatever monster you could afford to keep within your percentages for HQ's. Not a word of a lie, we'd have 1000 point characters on Dragons meet in the middle of the board, and whomever survived the contact would then go out and kill another 700 points worth of stuff at 2000 points. It was stupid, and I quit.

The same thing is happening to 40k, and it sinks my enthusiasm.

Something that could help you against Knights is to try playing terrain heavy Cityfight games, or, even better, Zone Mortalis games. Zone Mortalis is still free from Forgeworld as a PDF, and you don't have to have their boards to play.

GW has the solution to the TAC vs. Knights (and other specialized units) in their pocket, but they don't use it. Things like Knights are useless in tight quarters. Things like fliers are useless underground, or in dense urban terrain. Huge based models are useless in small Space Hulk corridors.

However, they never show you a board set up with anything but immense, wide open spaces, which are ideal for things like Monstrous Creatures, Flying Monstrous Creatures, Fliers, Knights, Riptides, etc. In those arenas, those units SHOULD dominate, but there's nothing in the game that requires that type of board be the default. If you play at a store or club, maybe bring some extra terrain of your own. Of course, talk to the opposition, as I'd hate to lug a knight to a game and discover I couldn't fit him on the board.


Of course, that's GW's fault as well. The fact that you own something with a big base shouldn't dictate what the terrain looks like, but functionally, it does. People expect to be able to bring Fliers and huge Walkers and FMC to the game, and the person who sets up a constrictive board is a jerk. I'm not sure how dictating your opponent's terrain by your army choice is cool, but dictating your opponent's army by your terrain choices became a douchebag move.

Maybe GW will create a model with a 6' x 4' base and we can just finish games in the deployment phase.

"I go first, you can't deploy and I win. I go second, I can't deploy and you win."

Boniface wrote:
So I keep looking at my models and thinking, 'I should paint them and play the game.' But then I come on here and get reminded that everything is so powerful these days it's not really worth the effort.
Admittedly some of my information is Internet hyperbole (I haven't actually played since 5th on the table, and 6th on vassal) but for example Necrons. I envisage turning up and watching as I fail to remove more than a couple of units and remove most of mine.
Or coming up against several flyers and getting stomped by my lack of AA.
Or coming up against 2-3 Knights.
Or any IoM army and getting something dropped next to me that wipes out a third of my army.
(Obviously I am slightly over exaggerating this by you get the point.)

Does anyone else just miss that days when you could turn up with anything and not worry too much about being completely outclassed?

It also just seems that everything is geared towards getting things off the table pronto.

Anyone else feel this way?

You mean back in the day where we had so many builds like BA Razor Spam, Draigo wing, leafblower guard and more draigo wing?

I for one love the variety that I'm seeing in 7th. The shifting meta keeps me on my toes, and I love having to adapt. So play some games before you judge, if you haven't played any since those editions frankly you have no room to speak on the state of the game.

Love this edition

Not really. Outside of tourneys, most of my LGS is pretty friendly, but is willing to accomodate. If you say "Hey, I'm tired of seeing Drop Pods, do you mind bring something else so I can try a different list?" most people are pretty willing.

I guess I would say if you feel you are seeing too much WAAC attitude, maybe find some new people to play with or try asking your current friends to vary up their lists.

Boniface wrote:
So I keep looking at my models and thinking, 'I should paint them and play the game.' But then I come on here and get reminded that everything is so powerful these days it's not really worth the effort.
Admittedly some of my information is Internet hyperbole (I haven't actually played since 5th on the table, and 6th on vassal) but for example Necrons. I envisage turning up and watching as I fail to remove more than a couple of units and remove most of mine.
Or coming up against several flyers and getting stomped by my lack of AA.
Or coming up against 2-3 Knights.
Or any IoM army and getting something dropped next to me that wipes out a third of my army.
(Obviously I am slightly over exaggerating this by you get the point.)

Does anyone else just miss that days when you could turn up with anything and not worry too much about being completely outclassed?

It also just seems that everything is geared towards getting things off the table pronto.

Anyone else feel this way?

Nope. 7-th with maelstorm is way more ballanced and friendly to a wider variety of lists than 4-6 have ever been.

We can catch up on vassal some time, i'm testing new stuff there from time to time. Still got a ton of orkses to paint including a truck and a few scratch-built guns but i'm a lazy arse and just wana play with toy soldiers - even digital ones.

 koooaei wrote:


Nope. 7-th with maelstorm is way more ballanced and friendly to a wider variety of lists than 4-6 have ever been.

I don't think there's any evidence of that. In fact, if anything, they tend to heavily favor speedy MSU armies over everything else. In fact, I think every major tournament (LVO, Adepticon, anything using ITC) extensively re-writes them.

Maelstrom is only "balanced" because the person with the far superior list can be screwed by random card draws. As usual, the only way GW knows how to "balance" something is to make it completely random. What happens when the person with the inferior or less mobile build also gets worse card draws? Also, if the game goes 6-7 turns, you're probably going to get tabled if it's that much of a mismatch. I was playing against a tau gunline, up 15-6 on victory points, he killed my last guy on turn 6, who was standing in the bottom of a ruin (out of line of sight), with a seeker missile.

7th Maelstrom missions definitely favor speed, but it also just so happens that some of the strongest armies in regular missions are also exceptionally fast. Serpent lists didn't exactly need any help excelling...

A few of the codices need work with tuning up and down the power levels, some of the psychic powers need tuning, the Force Org chart should be revamped, and some of the formations need to go (ex: Knights need to be 0-1 Lords of War...Adlance is a moneygrab that I have zero desire to play against), at least for tournament play. Other than that, 7th edition is actually a lot of fun as long as you play with reasonable people.