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Simple poll. Is 40k a serious wargame testing strategy and live decision making on a realistic far future battlefield, or is it a light fast moving board game on an open field to showcase neat toys?

Note that choices carry certain implications. For example, a serious strategy wargame may use more realistic rules for cover and movement, while a light board game would forgo that for speedy ease of play.
A serious game may involve thoughtful maneuvering, and take more time both planning moves as well as maybe requiring more turns and more involved scoring. A lighter game may use more random scoring and be shorter and more luck driven with less emphasis on realism and thinking ahead strategies. A more serious game may be seen as a barrier to new and very young or not so bright players, but be more rewarding for serious hobbyists and war tactics afficianados. Boardgamy style games are easier to sit and play right out of a box with little preparation and zero necessary study...

EDIT - should have made this more explicit but the intent here is not to judge the current iteration of the game but rather your feeling for what the game should be if done right... Just an opinion poll. No wrong answers. Though we all have our proclivities...

I'd say neither. It's not at all a simulation in any stretch of the word, but it's also not a particularly light game (given the amount of source material, codices, books, rules, etc.).

I do rank it at the bottom of the "good rules" portion of the games I play.

 Elbows wrote:
I'd say neither. It's not at all a simulation in any stretch of the word, but it's also not a particularly light game (given the amount of source material, codices, books, rules, etc.).

I do rank it at the bottom of the "good rules" portion of the games I play.

I avoided a neither option for a reason. I know, manipulative and even unfair but I see that you were able to choose a 'best' answer.
As for fluff, with an easy out of the box game and simple rules, all that fluff stuff becomes optional. Just an excuse to drink beer and eat pie.

Yeah, it's really neither of those in the context of which you're asking. Its success likely can be tied to the reality that it can be on a scale between either of those options, and lies closer to one or the other based on the individual's perceptions of it. For me, I'd say it's closer to a serious strategy wargame than a board game, but it's right on the line between them. Yes, it tests my abilities and requires thoughtful manoeuvring, but I don't think it requires more realistic rules to do that.

Given your explanation of the choices, Chess is more of a board game than a Serious Strategy Game. It isn't at all realistic, and can be played by anyone right out of the box with little preparation or skill required. You would surely lose to a chess master, but that's based on becoming proficient in the game with lots of study, and isn't required for regular play.

To every complex problem, there is a simple answer. And it's wrong.

I play 40K. I'm a grown man, and I make silly noises when hundreds of orks stampede across the table (sometimes). Count that light.

I also use strategy (sometimes). Count that heavy.

Sometimes I play hard to win, sometimes I throw in random moves.

And that's only brushing the surface: it's not an either/or question, and I'm sure that if you ask 50 players, you'll get at least 30 answers....

Despite the amount of randomness, the crap balanced rules, the poorly written rules, and having about as much depth in strategy as a shallow end of a kiddie pool, I still classify 40k as a Serious Strategy Game.

Why? Holy hell it's not user friendly. Aside from price issues, there have been people I tried to introduce the game to that were scared off by the rules alone. Even with open play rules, it's not something you can pick up, flick through the rules, and instantly know how to play from the getgo. Movement, Psychics, Shooting, Charging, combat phases, etc. It takes a fair bit of dedication just to know what you're doing in this game, much less actually make meaningful choices. Especially since earlier actions can impact later actions, so trying to "learn as you go" ain't gonna cut it. I've frequently had to explain to people that moving with heavy weapons will have penalties in the shooting phase, but they do so anyways and later asks why they get penalized for shooting.

Meanwhile some other type of games, like Catan or Flux, you can go into with just a glance at the rulebook and you'll generally know what you're doing. You might still do things wrong, but it won't hamper your play.

It was a game designed to get people to buy more and more models.

the original business GW had going was for old metal dnd stuff but people would buy a few things and that was it.

as to what it is now.

its what people want to do with it.

some people like super strategy competitive games. and so we have entire threads dedicated to .1% efficiencies and things trying to break other things.

some people like to paint and come up with cool stuff, so we have the entire P&M section and lore threads.

some people like me like both.

 jeff white wrote:
Simple poll. Is 40k a serious wargame testing strategy and live decision making on a realistic far future battlefield, or is it a light fast moving board game on an open field to showcase neat toys?

Note that choices carry certain implications. For example, a serious strategy wargame may use more realistic rules for cover and movement, while a light board game would forgo that for speedy ease of play.
A serious game may involve thoughtful maneuvering, and take more time both planning moves as well as maybe requiring more turns and more involved scoring. A lighter game may use more random scoring and be shorter and more luck driven with less emphasis on realism and thinking ahead strategies. A more serious game may be seen as a barrier to new and very young or not so bright players, but be more rewarding for serious hobbyists and war tactics afficianados. Boardgamy style games are easier to sit and play right out of a box with little preparation and zero necessary study...

EDIT - should have made this more explicit but the intent here is not to judge the current iteration of the game but rather your feeling for what the game should be if done right... Just an opinion poll. No wrong answers. Though we all have our proclivities...

What you define as a serious war game and what a serious war game really is are entirely different. Contrary to your post, serious super competetive wargames are more abstract, less reliant on realism. Line of sight isn't eyeballed, terrain is codified in rules for every aspect and it uses activations and not I go you go

stratigo wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Simple poll. Is 40k a serious wargame testing strategy and live decision making on a realistic far future battlefield, or is it a light fast moving board game on an open field to showcase neat toys?

Note that choices carry certain implications. For example, a serious strategy wargame may use more realistic rules for cover and movement, while a light board game would forgo that for speedy ease of play.
A serious game may involve thoughtful maneuvering, and take more time both planning moves as well as maybe requiring more turns and more involved scoring. A lighter game may use more random scoring and be shorter and more luck driven with less emphasis on realism and thinking ahead strategies. A more serious game may be seen as a barrier to new and very young or not so bright players, but be more rewarding for serious hobbyists and war tactics afficianados. Boardgamy style games are easier to sit and play right out of a box with little preparation and zero necessary study...

EDIT - should have made this more explicit but the intent here is not to judge the current iteration of the game but rather your feeling for what the game should be if done right... Just an opinion poll. No wrong answers. Though we all have our proclivities...

What you define as a serious war game and what a serious war game really is are entirely different. Contrary to your post, serious super competetive wargames are more abstract, less reliant on realism. Line of sight isn't eyeballed, terrain is codified in rules for every aspect and it uses activations and not I go you go

There are at least a few serious strategy games, the kind with hex boards and die-cut cardboard tokens that have the NATO planning symbol for the unit type on it, that are IGoUGo.


I think there should be 3 categories:
Light beer-and-pretzels board game
Competitive strategy game
Simulationist wargame.


Fundamentally, the only one of those 40k fails at being is the last one. GW kind of wants it to be a beer-and-pretzels game, but I enjoy it more as a competitive strategy game, and they do make concessions to keeping it usable to that end.

Neither.

Too poorly balanced and lacking in real player agency or meaningful decisions to be a serious strategy game, while being overly complicated, expensive, and a poor abstraction to be a light board game.

I can't pick either options as I really don't even know which way it leans more than the other. 40k for a long time has not known what it wants to be in many many ways.

I would say it's evolving into a serious strategy game with 8th edition. As it should. It's not 100% there yet, but from a competitive standpoint 8th is a step in the right direction for GW as a company.

What will hold 40k back from being truly competitive, is balance.

 Marmatag wrote:
I would say it's evolving into a serious strategy game with 8th edition. As it should. It's not 100% there yet, but from a competitive standpoint 8th is a step in the right direction for GW as a company.

What will hold 40k back from being truly competitive, is balance.

Its better than 7th.

thats what matters.

obviously some outliners are going to complain just like they always have though.

When I think serious wargame, I think Advanced Squad Leader.

An entire binder of 6-font rules...which I beat my head against a dozen times in high school trying to really bring it all together. That's...a "serious" wargame.

 Elbows wrote:
When I think serious wargame, I think Advanced Squad Leader.

An entire binder of 6-font rules...which I beat my head against a dozen times in high school trying to really bring it all together. That's...a "serious" wargame.

Absolutely. I do love those games.

It is a magic game that teleports money from my bank-account to a company in Nottingham.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

stratigo wrote:


What you define as a serious war game and what a serious war game really is are entirely different. Contrary to your post, serious super competetive wargames are more abstract, less reliant on realism. Line of sight isn't eyeballed, terrain is codified in rules for every aspect and it uses activations and not I go you go

There are at least a few serious strategy games, the kind with hex boards and die-cut cardboard tokens that have the NATO planning symbol for the unit type on it, that are IGoUGo.


I think there should be 3 categories:
Light beer-and-pretzels board game
Competitive strategy game
Simulationist wargame.


Fundamentally, the only one of those 40k fails at being is the last one. GW kind of wants it to be a beer-and-pretzels game, but I enjoy it more as a competitive strategy game, and they do make concessions to keeping it usable to that end.

Yeah, I can appreciate this distinction.
I wanted to keep it limited to two categories, and should have stressed the simulation aspect in the serious strategy game option,
though I did try to do so implicitly, as I described the terrain and cover rules that I expect to be part of a serious wargame.
Other people might think that MtG is a serious strategy game - I don't.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
I would say it's evolving into a serious strategy game with 8th edition. As it should. It's not 100% there yet, but from a competitive standpoint 8th is a step in the right direction for GW as a company.

What will hold 40k back from being truly competitive, is balance.

Yes, this is the sort of insight that I was looking for in opening the discussion.
Thanks for this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:
Neither.

Too poorly balanced and lacking in real player agency or meaningful decisions to be a serious strategy game, while being overly complicated, expensive, and a poor abstraction to be a light board game.

I can't pick either options as I really don't even know which way it leans more than the other. 40k for a long time has not known what it wants to be in many many ways.

I definitely agree here.
Again, please choose what you think that game SHOULD be if done right, not focus on the current or even past iterations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:

What you define as a serious war game and what a serious war game really is are entirely different. Contrary to your post, serious super competetive wargames are more abstract, less reliant on realism. Line of sight isn't eyeballed, terrain is codified in rules for every aspect and it uses activations and not I go you go

Competitive has nothing to do with it.
And, remember, answer according to how you feel the game SHOULD be if done right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
It was a game designed to get people to buy more and more models.

the original business GW had going was for old metal dnd stuff but people would buy a few things and that was it.

as to what it is now.

its what people want to do with it.

some people like super strategy competitive games. and so we have entire threads dedicated to .1% efficiencies and things trying to break other things.

some people like to paint and come up with cool stuff, so we have the entire P&M section and lore threads.

some people like me like both.

Yeah, this was part of it, but I would argue that the game was conceived of, originally, as an extension of RPG games with the upshot that Citadel could sell more models.
Since that time, these dynamics have been inverted, and the game is explicitly designed to market proprietary models and concepts.
Greed is god in the world of Mammon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stroller wrote:
To every complex problem, there is a simple answer. And it's wrong.

I play 40K. I'm a grown man, and I make silly noises when hundreds of orks stampede across the table (sometimes). Count that light.

I also use strategy (sometimes). Count that heavy.

Sometimes I play hard to win, sometimes I throw in random moves.

And that's only brushing the surface: it's not an either/or question, and I'm sure that if you ask 50 players, you'll get at least 30 answers....

Yep, this is the idea.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yarium wrote:
Yeah, it's really neither of those in the context of which you're asking. Its success likely can be tied to the reality that it can be on a scale between either of those options, and lies closer to one or the other based on the individual's perceptions of it. For me, I'd say it's closer to a serious strategy wargame than a board game, but it's right on the line between them. Yes, it tests my abilities and requires thoughtful manoeuvring, but I don't think it requires more realistic rules to do that.

Given your explanation of the choices, Chess is more of a board game than a Serious Strategy Game. It isn't at all realistic, and can be played by anyone right out of the box with little preparation or skill required. You would surely lose to a chess master, but that's based on becoming proficient in the game with lots of study, and isn't required for regular play.

Well, I have to disagree with you here.
If done right, chess requires years of study, and practice.
Sure, you can push pieces around right out of the box, but my dog can also chew on those right out of the box, and in neither case is the game being done "right"...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
I would say it's evolving into a serious strategy game with 8th edition. As it should. It's not 100% there yet, but from a competitive standpoint 8th is a step in the right direction for GW as a company.

What will hold 40k back from being truly competitive, is balance.

What does "competitive" have to do with this...?
Why can't a game be a serious game, without being "competitive"?
I would argue in fact that the current iteration is much less "competitive" than prior iterations,
unless we include willingness to unload big cash on Girlymen to this recipe for "competitive".
With this in mind, "balance" must also involve out of pocket and time expenses.

Maybe I need to post a different poll, concerning the priority of "competition" in 40k.
Is it primarily a "competitive" game, where each opposes the other in a zero sum fashion,
or it is primarily a "cooperative" game, where each opposes the other with the understanding that in doing it right,
the whole is greater than the sum of the parts...
Without cooperation as the governing framework, we end up with situations - I suppose like the current one for many people - wherein templates become unusable because players can't cooperate.

A serious game may involve thoughtful maneuvering, and take more time both planning moves as well as maybe requiring more turns and more involved scoring. A lighter game may use more random scoring and be shorter and more luck driven with less emphasis on realism and thinking ahead strategies. A more serious game may be seen as a barrier to new and very young or not so bright players, but be more rewarding for serious hobbyists and war tactics afficianados. Boardgamy style games are easier to sit and play right out of a box with little preparation and zero necessary study...

What has time to play got to do with 'serious'? I've played hundreds of different serious wargames and other boardgames over the years. There are some simple boardgames that can go on hours, and serious wargames that can be over quite quick.

Scoring being more complex? Really, many many serious wargames have very simple scoring - e.g. did you cross the Meuse, Yes = win, No= lose. They don't get much simpler and binary. I have no idea what you mean by random scoring? Is that random objectives? which can be equally at home in serious war games.

Boardgamey types are easier to sit and play out the box? You disagreed with chess being easy to play out the box, yet that is pretty simple to play out the box, the rules are not complex, and it is ultimately how complex the rules are that defines how easy it is to play straight out the box for new or young kids. Playing out the box and mastering a game are not the same at all. A simple 'non war game' with simple rules can equally be a years to master game just like chess (which going by the above you class as a serious boardgame).

PS since when has chess been a 'realistic far future battlefield'. Chess is abstract, yet realism was one of your requirements for serious.

puree wrote:

A serious game may involve thoughtful maneuvering, and take more time both planning moves as well as maybe requiring more turns and more involved scoring. A lighter game may use more random scoring and be shorter and more luck driven with less emphasis on realism and thinking ahead strategies. A more serious game may be seen as a barrier to new and very young or not so bright players, but be more rewarding for serious hobbyists and war tactics afficianados. Boardgamy style games are easier to sit and play right out of a box with little preparation and zero necessary study...

What has time to play got to do with 'serious'? I've played hundreds of different serious wargames and other boardgames over the years. There are some simple boardgames that can go on hours, and serious wargames that can be over quite quick.

Scoring being more complex? Really, many many serious wargames have very simple scoring - e.g. did you cross the Meuse, Yes = win, No= lose. They don't get much simpler and binary. I have no idea what you mean by random scoring? Is that random objectives? which can be equally at home in serious war games.

Boardgamey types are easier to sit and play out the box? You disagreed with chess being easy to play out the box, yet that is pretty simple to play out the box, the rules are not complex, and it is ultimately how complex the rules are that defines how easy it is to play straight out the box for new or young kids. Playing out the box and mastering a game are not the same at all. A simple 'non war game' with simple rules can equally be a years to master game just like chess (which going by the above you class as a serious boardgame).

PS since when has chess been a 'realistic far future battlefield'. Chess is abstract, yet realism was one of your requirements for serious.

Well, I suppose you want to argue.
I wrote, clearly "may" - it is really just an opinion poll, so it is your opinion.
I am happy that you share your opinion.
I am happy to share my opinion.

The examples to which you point are just that, examples.
My own examples, what I feel to be a serious game is open to a serious investment in time,
maybe some sit down thinking time, be detailed, and in my mind for a wargame also realistic, with fine grained rules aiming to simulate a battlefield.
This is a wargame done "right" in my opinion.
The rules need not be complex, for the sake of complexity.
They may be elegant, and in their elegance simple, or they may be poorly constructed, patched together, spread out, done "wrong".

Chess is a serious game because it is elegant, not really simple.
The potential synergies really make the game, and these stay hidden from most people for a long time.
It is not easy to play well, in other words to do it "right" as I had written above.
Meanwhile, a game that emphasizes giggling while one tosses dice using a third-party constructed list and winning points due the random draw of a mission card with the newest buffmander spam pulling the rest of the weight is not serious, in my opinion, though some may feel it even "competitive" and also not simple, anyways it is not 40k done "right" imo.
But, what do I know.
I only posted the poll to get opinions in the air.
I have shared mine, you seem to be sharing yours.
If you can think of a better way to run a similar poll, then go for it man.
I will contribute to that thread as well.

Except you also clearly stated

Note that choices carry certain implications.

. You were making it quite clear (be design or accident), no matter how much you said 'may/might' that serious had those implications and non serious had the others. They may be implications to you, but if you are going to imply that when others do not then what is the point of the poll?
I can't even work out why you use the term board game (cos it isn't in the common sense of boardgame)? Again feels like your own feelings are coming out in a biased question, and you allow for no other interpretation. So what was the point?.


OK here are my opinions.

Whether a game is serious or not is a mentality thing. Stuff you see as non serious can be taken very seriously by some. Almost any game which has a 'competitive' scene will be seen as serious by those taking part. Equally what you might see as serious will be seen as a pointless waste of time playing with man dollies by others. 40k can be a serious or none serious wargame depnding on who I play with and in what context.

Third party lists? How many really play with a 3rd party list. No one I knows pulls lists from online. But I don't see how relevant that is to the seriousness of the game itself? Are there many similarities between lists? - of course there are. The nature of these wargames is that there is only so much variation. If lack of variation is an issue for you then presumably historical wargaming struggles to be serious?

Random objectives? It certainly forces you to make Live decisions, which was a criteria for being serious according to you. Shifting objectives is part and parcel of war. Different sides with different objectives is also reasonable. A tactical game where you get new priorities as you meet old ones feels realistic enough, and that was also part of your criteria. Even wider operational level games can have that - war is an extension of politics and we are often not playing the politician in a wargame - Hitler suddenly decides that the Ukraine is the new priority and your victory conditions change, sucks to have your panzers on the way to Leningrad.

Synergies staying hidden for a long time. That falls into how quick to play vs how quick to master. So for example, a game with random objective draws is easy to play. But learning to do well involves understanding that you have to be able to react on the fly to what ever comes up and plan accordingly (be it at list creation, turn by turn, or any influence you may have on the objectives). If you can do that you will do better overall than the newbie who just comes with 'stuff' and throws dice.

40k is a skirmish game. At the usual pt level, you can have a handful models or a few hundred.
But its a bit over the top to talk about strategy here. Its just tactics.

 jeff white wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

stratigo wrote:


What you define as a serious war game and what a serious war game really is are entirely different. Contrary to your post, serious super competetive wargames are more abstract, less reliant on realism. Line of sight isn't eyeballed, terrain is codified in rules for every aspect and it uses activations and not I go you go

There are at least a few serious strategy games, the kind with hex boards and die-cut cardboard tokens that have the NATO planning symbol for the unit type on it, that are IGoUGo.


I think there should be 3 categories:
Light beer-and-pretzels board game
Competitive strategy game
Simulationist wargame.


Fundamentally, the only one of those 40k fails at being is the last one. GW kind of wants it to be a beer-and-pretzels game, but I enjoy it more as a competitive strategy game, and they do make concessions to keeping it usable to that end.

Yeah, I can appreciate this distinction.
I wanted to keep it limited to two categories, and should have stressed the simulation aspect in the serious strategy game option,
though I did try to do so implicitly, as I described the terrain and cover rules that I expect to be part of a serious wargame.
Other people might think that MtG is a serious strategy game - I don't.

MTG is a very serious strategy game. It is not, however a simulationist wargame.

I've noticed that, as a general rule, the more "serious strategy game" something is, the less "simulationist wargame" it is.

Take, for example, Chess, since you mentioned it. [Preface, I hate Chess] Chess is the serious strategy game, but you'd be really, really stretching yourself to see any sort of wargame or simulation in it. It doesn't reflect or model anything, but it's engineered to test your mental capabilities.


I consider a wargame to be a game dedicated to modelling the events of a battle. By their nature, they are strategy games, but I wouldn't call them serious as strategy games. Testing your mental capacity is a secondary condition to ensuring that conditions and events on the battlefield are modeled as accurately as possible. They are not Chess or Go.


40k is somewhere in the middle on all scales.

It's not a game, man. It's a way of life.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Spoiler:

 jeff white wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

stratigo wrote:


What you define as a serious war game and what a serious war game really is are entirely different. Contrary to your post, serious super competetive wargames are more abstract, less reliant on realism. Line of sight isn't eyeballed, terrain is codified in rules for every aspect and it uses activations and not I go you go

There are at least a few serious strategy games, the kind with hex boards and die-cut cardboard tokens that have the NATO planning symbol for the unit type on it, that are IGoUGo.


I think there should be 3 categories:
Light beer-and-pretzels board game
Competitive strategy game
Simulationist wargame.


Fundamentally, the only one of those 40k fails at being is the last one. GW kind of wants it to be a beer-and-pretzels game, but I enjoy it more as a competitive strategy game, and they do make concessions to keeping it usable to that end.

Yeah, I can appreciate this distinction.
I wanted to keep it limited to two categories, and should have stressed the simulation aspect in the serious strategy game option,
though I did try to do so implicitly, as I described the terrain and cover rules that I expect to be part of a serious wargame.
Other people might think that MtG is a serious strategy game - I don't.

MTG is a very serious strategy game. It is not, however a simulationist wargame.

I've noticed that, as a general rule, the more "serious strategy game" something is, the less "simulationist wargame" it is.

Take, for example, Chess, since you mentioned it. [Preface, I hate Chess] Chess is the serious strategy game, but you'd be really, really stretching yourself to see any sort of wargame or simulation in it. It doesn't reflect or model anything, but it's engineered to test your mental capabilities.


I consider a wargame to be a game dedicated to modelling the events of a battle. By their nature, they are strategy games, but I wouldn't call them serious as strategy games. Testing your mental capacity is a secondary condition to ensuring that conditions and events on the battlefield are modeled as accurately as possible. They are not Chess or Go.


40k is somewhere in the middle on all scales.

Yes I understand your point.

Think about a game having distinct characteristics.
Simulation or realism, which gives us hard points about a theater of interaction that stabilizes intersubjective expectations while also facilitating fine grained representation in a more efficient if not eloquent manner then would be possible if all of these expectations were spelled out in a perfect rulebook.
Strategy, including tactics and metalevel thinking, which becomes more serious as possibilites expand and as leverage points become less obvious and less serious when hypo dimensional solutions become obvious.

In general we are picturing a problem space structured by action potentials.

I would argue that chess does formally represent and so simulate certain characteristics essential to strategic thinking as expressed in battle between two opposing forces. Kill or contain leadership. Concentrate force. Isolate targets. Control the field. I does seem to do so quite elegantly, but in my mind it is very much a simulation of these formal properties. It is not very realistic in the sense of visualy looking like reality but it does stabilize expectations around how we commonly expect interactions to proceed. It is grounded in our grounding in reality and this in terms of a formed ranks battlefield encounter.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

puree wrote:
Except you also clearly stated

Note that choices carry certain implications.

. You were making it quite clear (be design or accident), no matter how much you said 'may/might' that serious had those implications and non serious had the others. They may be implications to you, but if you are going to imply that when others do not then what is the point of the poll?
I can't even work out why you use the term board game (cos it isn't in the common sense of boardgame)? Again feels like your own feelings are coming out in a biased question, and you allow for no other interpretation. So what was the point?.

Spoiler:

OK here are my opinions.

Whether a game is serious or not is a mentality thing. Stuff you see as non serious can be taken very seriously by some. Almost any game which has a 'competitive' scene will be seen as serious by those taking part. Equally what you might see as serious will be seen as a pointless waste of time playing with man dollies by others. 40k can be a serious or none serious wargame depnding on who I play with and in what context.

Third party lists? How many really play with a 3rd party list. No one I knows pulls lists from online. But I don't see how relevant that is to the seriousness of the game itself? Are there many similarities between lists? - of course there are. The nature of these wargames is that there is only so much variation. If lack of variation is an issue for you then presumably historical wargaming struggles to be serious?

Random objectives? It certainly forces you to make Live decisions, which was a criteria for being serious according to you. Shifting objectives is part and parcel of war. Different sides with different objectives is also reasonable. A tactical game where you get new priorities as you meet old ones feels realistic enough, and that was also part of your criteria. Even wider operational level games can have that - war is an extension of politics and we are often not playing the politician in a wargame - Hitler suddenly decides that the Ukraine is the new priority and your victory conditions change, sucks to have your panzers on the way to Leningrad.

Synergies staying hidden for a long time. That falls into how quick to play vs how quick to master. So for example, a game with random objective draws is easy to play. But learning to do well involves understanding that you have to be able to react on the fly to what ever comes up and plan accordingly (be it at list creation, turn by turn, or any influence you may have on the objectives). If you can do that you will do better overall than the newbie who just comes with 'stuff' and throws dice.

I think that either you are moving my "may" or I have written my thoughts out wrong...
Probably the latter.
Anyways, the intention was that the listed examples were POSSIBLE implications, and that the point of the poll was to field opinions on what these implications may be by asking people directly what they thought about it.

Sp, maybe I should edit my original post?
Originally:
a serious strategy wargame may use more realistic rules for cover and movement, while a light board game would forgo that for speedy ease of play.
Modified:
MAYBE, a serious strategy wargame may use more realistic rules for cover and movement, maybe, while a light board game might forgo that for speedy ease of play, maybe.

In the end, my thinking has been affected a bit.
I had considered random card draws to be a less-serious strategy game mechanic, but ...
If I adopt the notion that we live in a world governed by probabilities, then I can appreciate the random card mechanic a bit better.
Just turns out that I expect my tabletop games to be more deterministic.
If I had not read some of the responses to this thread, then I would not have thought about things differently.
So, I learned something.
I guess that was ultimately the point of the poll.

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's not a game, man. It's a way of life.

40k. It costs my money, it costs my time, it costs my life (wife).

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's not a game, man. It's a way of life.

40k. It costs my money, it costs my time, it costs my life (wife).

That is some serious .

For myself, yeah, I spent a lot of time working on models that I never even used. Fantasy stuff sitting in a box on a shelf. Spent more time shopping different hobby shops for old models and supplies, looking for paints and building terrain. Most of that stuff is all gone now. Left behind when life got turned upside down and more often than I'd like to admit. But 40k and warhammer generally helped get me through . when I had no control over my situation and was powerless to make anything better I could always work on controlling the brush, converting dudes, sorting bits, and planning armies and creating something for my self even when I was alone and at my lowest.
Yeah. This hobby might have saved my life. Kept me at my desk when i might have been drinking myself to death. Not that I didn't try but this hobby gave me something to look forward to when everything else, and I mean everything, turned to .
Yeah. I spent maybe too much time and energy, probably missed opportunities that I will never know about, suppose I could have gone out and worked more, made more money somehow who knows, but what I do know is that when all else fails I still got my dudes, and something to improve on. A reason to keep going however small and even pathetic some people might think it.
Yeah. This is some serious .
Maybe this is why I expect a lot from it. A serious enterprise, not the gamng world's tenth longest running marketing stunt or some such tripe. Something worth getting out of bed in the morning for, even at times a reason to live.
Lifestyle? Yeah. Way of life? Yeah. Just, life.

 jeff white wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's not a game, man. It's a way of life.

40k. It costs my money, it costs my time, it costs my life (wife).

That is some serious .

For myself, yeah, I spent a lot of time working on models that I never even used. Fantasy stuff sitting in a box on a shelf. Spent more time shopping different hobby shops for old models and supplies, looking for paints and building terrain. Most of that stuff is all gone now. Left behind when life got turned upside down and more often than I'd like to admit. But 40k and warhammer generally helped get me through . when I had no control over my situation and was powerless to make anything better I could always work on controlling the brush, converting dudes, sorting bits, and planning armies and creating something for my self even when I was alone and at my lowest.
Yeah. This hobby might have saved my life. Kept me at my desk when i might have been drinking myself to death. Not that I didn't try but this hobby gave me something to look forward to when everything else, and I mean everything, turned to .
Yeah. I spent maybe too much time and energy, probably missed opportunities that I will never know about, suppose I could have gone out and worked more, made more money somehow who knows, but what I do know is that when all else fails I still got my dudes, and something to improve on. A reason to keep going however small and even pathetic some people might think it.
Yeah. This is some serious .
Maybe this is why I expect a lot from it. A serious enterprise, not the gamng world's tenth longest running marketing stunt or some such tripe. Something worth getting out of bed in the morning for, even at times a reason to live.
Lifestyle? Yeah. Way of life? Yeah. Just, life.

Exalted! Its a heavy part of my life as well. It helped me a lot to distract when distraction was needed.

I'm going to take the third option:

A light sci-fi strategy wargame.

I'm not a tournament player but I still tend to take the strategy part seriously. Because this is a strategy game.

Its neither. Its a light grimdark space fantasy wargame. Not sure why you picked such terrible options for the poll, but its closer to the light sci-fi "board game" option than the serious scifi wargame option.

Yeah I assume light meant more to do with tone and how it's played as a social activity than light in the sense of simple or rules light.

For a board game it's towards the more rules heavy end of the spectrum, though this edition might be more mid range I suppose.

It's a "tabletop miniature wargame." Like GW defines it.

Not a board game. Ain't monopoly.

There's strategy involved. That's part of playing the game. Any game really.

Serious? I'd say in the cost to get onto it, it's a serious investment.