Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If you want to discuss the issues / problems of 40k please feel free here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/687396.page

Otherwise, I hope to keep this on a more positive note.

Labmouse began in the other thread:

- Allied armies add a lot of flavor and unique feel to armies. There are now dozens of army combinations now.
- The amount of unit combinations has skyrocked with allies. It opens up a lot more options for cool lists.
- Formations encourage fluff lists by giving power to fluff based armies. Balance is an issue in some cases, but the intent is there.
- The psychic phase engages both players, making it a more enjoyable phase than before.
- Decursion style formations are a refreshing change from the CAD formations we have seen for years. I like building decursion lists just because of the change.
- The tournament scene has banded together finally to make unified rule modifications like the ITC.

Positives that I enjoy:

- List building. Relatively varied, fun and with several options especially with cad, allies, formations etc. Not always ultra competitive but I play for fun anyway so.
- Individual unit rules - whilst some people espouse 40k should be simplified, I really enjoy the fact that a basic trooper is different to a jetbike, is different to a MC, is different to a flyer.
- Movement - part of me genuinely pines for 2nd ed movement stats where stealers moved 6 but squats moved 3. However overall, I think the simplified system works better and is faster to play.
- Missions - I really enjoy Maelstrom as a set of mission rules. Not all are perfect but are very interesting and makes for a more tactical game than KPs.
- Allies. As above.
- Variation in armies - sure you can make one army play like another (all hard hitting pewpew) but in general each faction still has a unique feel to it. Be it aesthetically, rules wise or strenghts wise.
- Generally fast gameplay. Whilst there are a tonne of special rules and silly interactions, imo 40k plays quite quickly in general fairly smoothly if you play more casually and dont get bogged down in rules battles.
- The unknown - being a dice based game, with several differnt army styles/builds and special rules available, a lot of the time you dont know what way the battle will go, what you will face and how to handle it. I find it quite exciting.

The mini's themselves are the best around and the fluff is fantastic!

Yay a positive thread!

1. List building as well, I play fluffy or hey lemme try this out almost 80% of the time, so it's always fun.

2. Random events in every game. I know some people don't like the random things that can happen, but they are always epic. I've had a friend of mine in a doubles game paint up Huron and a terminator guard for him, we allied and were so excited to try out this combo, and turn one Huron perils and gets sucked into the warp, bringing all but one lonely terminator guard with him lol. That lonely terminator became mvp and saved everything, lasted the entire game somehow lol. We have epic things like this happen at least 3 times a game, and it's always fun, but then again we don't play competitively.

3. Coolness factor - All of the models just look amazing on the table, no matter what you bring.

The level of unit and individual model customization. That the game encourages customization, conversion and creativity is one of the things that keeps me playing it.

I wouldn't have nearly so much satisfaction playing Warmachine or X-Wing.

Background
Background
Artwork
Background

oh and the game? hmmm

I like a certain amouint of list building
Ability to equip and create your own characters
Many (but not all) of the models just look great

did I mention the background

40k has inspiring background and art.And the models are of a particular style that I am drawn too.

This has always been the case since RT days when I started playing.

I love the new codex style.

I cannot say enough positive things about Allies. If Allies had been the norm since I started playing, I'd own far more armies than I do now.

The ability to throw grenades. Great jumpin Jehosephat, that was something I was so happy to see introduced!

The models, of course. I play Dark Eldar primarily, which might be the most beautiful range they have.

The fluff has its problems, but is entertaining.

I think variance in the FoC is a wonderful idea, and hope some of the kinks get shaken out as we go forward.

On that note, I think formations are also a thing of grandeur.

Risk management, stacking redundancy and contingency planning. Part of the reason I like random charges!

The miniatures. They produce the best miniatures in the world. But they have no idea about developping an appropriate Ruhe set.

I love the fact that there are some many 3rd party companies that produce bits and models for 40k. You can really make your army stand out from the cookie cutter looks. Adds some much more character to your army.

Personally I feel Allies are a serious weakness, making it possible to merge armies that were designed to be different, distinctive and separate into a bland melange.

Armies - the huge range of different armies makes it far less likely that you'll always be playing against the same thing (unless you're always playing against the same couple of people, obviously )

Scale - 40K fills a niche that isn't really satisfied by any other currently-available game, allowing for massive battles in 28(ish)mm. However well (or not) it does that, it's the only fish in this particular pond.

Background - while the overall tone of the background material changes as time goes on, the 40K background is a large part of what got me into the game in the first place, and is still pretty awesome.

Miniatures - I think it's been some time since GW occupied the 'best in the world' spot where miniatures are concerned, but for the most part they're still fairly consistently good. And the gradual shifting of everything to plastic certainly makes life easier for those of us who compulsively convert stuff...

I have always enjoyed the possibilities for modelling all kinds of variant stuff.

The background is fantastic, the quality of the figs, even the basic troops can be customized. Yes GW figs are expensive, but the plastic is a really good one, easy to cut / glue / modify. If you play non competitive you can try a lot of combinaison / strategies thanks to the rules.

Great fluff, great minis, great artwork and I am really enjoying the game at the moment.

Yay a positive thread!

40k isnt perfect but its nice to acknowledge its strenghts

Some very interesting positives listed here.

The greatest strength of wh40k is pulling people who quit the game many years ago right back in.

The greatest strength of wh40k is getting people to buy without caring about the price.

Can't beat their models.

In my opinion, the number 1 reason has got to be the mini's. I know people say it to be sarcastic or in jest a lot, but for a lot of us, 40k really is most of, if not all, of "the hobby", and the mini's really play a key role in that. I can forgive crappy rules, but not crappy models. I don't know anyone personally who's into any kind of mini game for any other reason.

Model Quality is still high even if people don't like the visual style of some models or the new visual style its going in.

I love the variety of units you can fight with, it makes me feel like painting them all just to see what they can do on the table. Having the choice and changing your list all the time to make sure you never play twice the same game.

I like the Maelstrom missions, where I think the unbalance of the different codices are somehow mitigated.

I love the miniatures and the background, I love to play against fully painted armies and discovering the custom color schemes used by the opponents.

The good thing about 40k is the wide background and possibility to build armies from a wide range of different models from different manufactors.

Movement - part of me genuinely pines for 2nd ed movement stats where stealers moved 6 but squats moved 3. However overall, I think the simplified system works better and is faster to play.

There is a simplified System?
This must be new becauzse I only know the rather complicate System that every unit type moves in a different way and that there are special rules which speed special unit types up and slow others down.

Having semi-switched to WMH and now being back, and far happier for it, I have to say 40ks major strengths are:

1) list variety in standard games. Maybe this is just a local thing, but in WMH if you told me what caster you played, I knew your list, and realistically only 2-3 casters per faction got played. Add in the fact that every model was created the same and most were not painted, as a miniature hobby 40k had far more variety.

2) Scale. A hero guy, 2-4 dreadnought sized models, 10 wusses in a squad, 2-3 solo support models. Throw a couple small felt outlines of buildings or forests covering about 10% of the board, that's your WMH game. In 40k you have massive armies smashing against each other across dense cityscapes, it's just much more appealing narratively.

3) Less abstraction. My guy is going to try to do something, I roll a die and try to hit a number to do it. WMH is more like "Magic the gathering" with really complex rules for moving cards around. You tap stuff and boost stuff and shuffle little tokens around and most of the game is just posturing for a big combo-wombo in which one of the two casters just gets taken out (or an inevitable grind-out where one side can't do anything at all because rules interaction XYZ means you have to roll a 13 on 2 dice to do 1 point of damage to my giant tree who has 68 hit points). It's tiring, and if I want to play an abstract game I'll use little pieces of cardboard and not worry about how they "look" because that's not the point.


I really wanted to like WMH. It's rules were partially lifted from one of my favorite mini games of all time, Monsterpocalypse (a thoroughly enjoyable, strategically deep but still highly fun and cinematic kaiju monster game, in which you get 1 giant monster and an army of various flavors of mooks who die ignominiously en masse to slightly tip the giant monster battle in the favor of their particular big guy.) but they'd ditched the core principle of the game, which was: beating uncreatively on the other big guy could only ever net you one damage at a time, and you had to throw and grapple them into hazards, launch combo attacks with your mini troops, and use special attacks to ramp up the damage. In WMH, boosting stats, charging in and whaling on the other guy is the way to play.

At the end of the day, no, 40k isn't particularly strategic. But it satisfies my miniature game itch way better than WMH or Malifaux ever did.

I'm glad to see a positive thread, the constant negativity does get a little tiring.

I'm lucky enough to have a housemate who plays (occasionally - though the nerfing of DE did put him off, but then he dropped a load of money on models before reading the codex properly and giving it a test first!).

Also getting a couple of mates back in, I have all the models so fairly balanced armies which means there shouldn't be too much unfortunate mismatching.

I like collecting and painting, and have a nice table setup and some nice terrain. I enjoy playing semi-comp, which I think is doable in 40K, it just requires some 'gentlemens agreements'.

I like the way the game is going. I thought 7th edition was excellent, just from the perspective of a well-written rules book (well, better written... by GW's previous standards).

Very adaptive to house rules, or homebrew games.

Some of the best minis around

Each army has their own feel.

The amount of scratch built, and VALID, game pieces you can make is staggering

The back story and setting (is this what people refer to as the 'fluff'?) is amazing, I only play a few other systems but I doubt there can be another game with as rich a background as 40k.
I took a break from the hobby but was drawn back in due to reading the Horus Heresy books.

Thanks for the positive thread. There's so much negativity, yet the game's clearly good enough for us all to still play and spend time talking about it!

Fluff - a great, rich background that's been thriving for 3 decades.
Minis - great models, with loads of options for customising and converting. I also love all the old metal models from the 80s and 90s.
List building - there's such a richness of unit options. Loads of units for each faction and loads of options for each unit. You can just keep writing lists and trying new things (especially if you're doing it to make an interesting or fun army/game, rather than just to make something really competitive.
The battlefield - the look of a battlefield, with all the nice terrain and two nicely painted armies facing off against each other (and then the remains after the carnage at the end - just a few scattered models/units dotted around the battlefield).
Tactics and planning - figuring out exactly what you're going to do, and then watching the plan go out the window by the end of turn 1!
Eternal War missions - better than just kill points (but not as random as Maelstrom).

Overall, I was hooked by RT back in the early 90s and the fluff, models and rules have just got better over time.

The standard Maelstrom mission, with a slight adjustment, is the best thing to happen to the game since it was created.

The game actually matters and changes. You can have two people playing the same armies in two consecutive games play wildly differently.

It forces a varied experience.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
The mini's themselves are the best around and the fluff is fantastic!

+1 to this.

GW has done some amazing stuff with injected plastic.

 insaniak wrote:
Miniatures - I think it's been some time since GW occupied the 'best in the world' spot where miniatures are concerned, but for the most part they're still fairly consistently good. And the gradual shifting of everything to plastic certainly makes life easier for those of us who compulsively convert stuff...

The finecast and plastic are also much lighter.
My metal warp spiders keep falling over and chipping, where the finecast ones are much more stable.

My friend has a metal LoC that seems to shatter every time it falls over (admittedly he needs to pin it). My finecast LoC has never had a single problem. Its the same reason an ant can fall off a roof and be fine. The smaller your mass, the less the force of gravity pulls you down. While the acceleration is the same for both a pewter LoC and Finecast, the finecast has less force impacted on it upon landing. Furthermore the finecast can move without breaking, allowing it to absorb more of the force without cracking.

As much as I may complain about finecast. For most instances it's better than metal.
This does not even cover how much easier it is to transport an army of plastics.

I enjoy the system for games in a Narrative Campaign too. It often produces emergent storyline elements, which is fun.

On a related note, I enjoy a lot of Inquisitor Steve's IS:Lith stuff.