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This is going to sound weird. Love playing 40k. Seeing all the armies fully painted on a scenery board. Having fun and chatting with like minded folk and friends.

But I hate going through picking the mission and going through all the book-keeping of setting up the match. Like I just got the AoS generals handbook and the 9th Ed rulebook. Tried reading them but honestly I just get so bored trying to memorise all the different ways to play and which rules apply to which scenario. But then rocking up to your mates for friendly game means you waste half an hour deciding what mission to go with. TBH I barely even follow the objectives when we play. Like I’ve played a fair amount of Heresy, including three local tournaments and can memorise a good chunk of the unit and army rules. But couldn’t tell you what any of the missions were. Wouldn’t even read the mission pack for the tournament. It’s bad enough with friends but with a stranger it’s really awkward because they see it as a crucial part of the game.

It’s to the point where I don’t like even being involved in picking the mission. Yet my friend I play 40k with seems to push that on me to do and even suggests I should come up with new mission types. I just have no interest in that part of the hobby.

I think it’s partly because there’s so many of them and they’re constantly changing. There’s almost no point learning them and I don’t 40k to get familiar with any of the rules. Like I got the Sisters of Battle tactical objective cards in the limited edition. Those have been outdated by the time I got a decent enough number done. So, there’s almost no point learning or using them.

It's a little strange because they're honestly not that complicated or overwhelming and if you can memorize pages and pages of rules, for both the core game and your army, then just spending time familiarizing yourself with a mission shouldn't be too difficult. It sounds like the group you play with is making it more complex than it should be despite the book itself providing easy ways to choose: if you're playing a 1001-2000 point game you just roll a d6 and whichever the result is; that's your mission. There you go. That's all it takes. It's even in the rulebook.

I would also say that not being interested in any kind of mission (whether its open, narrative or matched) really means you're missing out on the main draw of actually playing 40k. The game on its own is not particularly interesting or packed with depth. It's the missions that allow it to showcase that; whether its forging a narrative and a storyline or by providing interesting scenarios and tactical choices. If you like two armies sitting in their deployment zones just rolling dice and removing models, then you do you, but it's not really where the actual strengths of the game lie and never have.

Why would you try memorizing the missions, rather than just following what it shows in the book?

Why does choosing a mission take half an hour when you are supposed to just roll a die and go with what it picks?

How do you play the game while ignoring the mission entirely? Just line up and kill each other?

I am genuinely confused by this post.

 Bosskelot wrote:
It's a little strange because they're honestly not that complicated or overwhelming and if you can memorize pages and pages of rules, for both the core game and your army, then just spending time familiarizing yourself with a mission shouldn't be too difficult. It sounds like the group you play with is making it more complex than it should be despite the book itself providing easy ways to choose: if you're playing a 1001-2000 point game you just roll a d6 and whichever the result is; that's your mission. There you go. That's all it takes. It's even in the rulebook.

I would also say that not being interested in any kind of mission (whether its open, narrative or matched) really means you're missing out on the main draw of actually playing 40k. The game on its own is not particularly interesting or packed with depth. It's the missions that allow it to showcase that; whether its forging a narrative and a storyline or by providing interesting scenarios and tactical choices. If you like two armies sitting in their deployment zones just rolling dice and removing models, then you do you, but it's not really where the actual strengths of the game lie and never have.

Well I can memorise Heresy stuff because that doesn’t change every year and most weapon and unit profiles are as they were since 3rd edition. Plus there’s less difference between an Imperial Fist and Ultramarines army versus a Sisters of Battle and Genestealer Cults army. Never mind relearning AoS whenever you go back to that. We find ourselves constantly referring back to the rulebooks for reference and it massively slows the game down. So flicking through the generals handbook for AoS where there’s ton of different scenarios that get invalidated every few months is genuinely annoying.

Its not just roll D6 and pick a mission. You have three different ways to play. Picking Warlord traits. Getting command points. Figuring out force organisation with detachments. Some missions have tactical objective cards and some do not; because reasons. Haven’t even touched that TBH. Some have random environment rules. You have to pick the rules for every type of scenery. It’s a lot.

Picture this. Your mate asks you to pick a random mission. Well which books? We have all the Psychic Awakening and Vigilus ones which I’ve never read and most of them are faction specific. You’ve also got environment rules scattered in other booms which you can sprinkle
onto these. So you end up chewing through time trying to find a suitable mission. So it’s a lot more to consider than roll d6 on one of a handful of missions.

Honestly I don’t think the scenario adds anything tangible because most armies are so dangerous that you can wipe the enemy out and the objectives end up following from this. Even if you scratch an objective win somehow, you’ve not really won if your armies been shot off the board and caused no casualties. Battles are too one sided in a lot of cases.

But yeah, to me the game is already massively time consuming (8 hours to get to end of turn 3 in a 200 power game; rule book tells me this should only take 3) with us constantly referring back to the rules and anything that adds to that I just have no taste for.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
Why would you try memorizing the missions, rather than just following what it shows in the book?

Why does choosing a mission take half an hour when you are supposed to just roll a die and go with what it picks?

How do you play the game while ignoring the mission entirely? Just line up and kill each other?

I am genuinely confused by this post.

Because if you know the missions you actually can just roll a die and pick the scenario without constantly referring back to the rulebook or leaving three or four books open on various pages scattered around the room. Not having them memorised means you’re wasting time referring to rulebook and flicking through pages.

Because you have to agree with who you’re playing with what the mission is. Which rules are being used. Discuss possibly using one of the unique missions and then deciding it’s a bad idea. Flirting with the idea of adding the environment rules and randomly rolling on them. All the while aware that you’re ignoring tactical objectives. That can take half an hour, especially once you add setting up the objectives.

Beyond sit guys on my objectives in my deployment zone and drive towards those on the other side? Yeah. It works. Although I prefer close combat. The objective game is just lining up and killing them with style.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Its not just roll D6 and pick a mission. You have three different ways to play. Picking Warlord traits. Getting command points. Figuring out force organisation with detachments. Some missions have tactical objective cards and some do not; because reasons. Haven’t even touched that TBH. Some have random environment rules. You have to pick the rules for every type of scenery. It’s a lot.

I dunno, sounds to me like you just have trouble making up your mind on the mission in the first place (which is actually a fair shout if you have all of the expansion books and so on, choice paralysis is a real thing after all).
But a lot of these are non-complaints.
For starters, how do you not know whether you're playing Open, Matched or Narrative play ahead of time? If you've arranged a game with someone, that's not a difficult choice to make. If it's a pick-up game you can pretty much expect it to be Matched, because people will have put lists and points together ahead of time. That now includes Warlord traits, force orgs and Command points, which are all decided on building the army, not by the mission itself. On the other hand if they say they'd like to play an Open or Narrative game instead, on the fly? Bang - that's it, that's the change done immediately. You're just rolling on a different table, quick and easy.

Environment rules... not really that difficult. If you really don't like them, pick a mission that doesn't have them. If you've rolled a D6? You only have to worry about those rules for that one game, attempting to memorise them is a bit much. Scenery gets a lot easier to handle once you have a few games under your belt, as most scenery pieces are pretty similar, which is why the rules go through a few examples. Besides which, most battlefields are only going to worry about a few types of cover anyway - I don't see Exposed Position or Unstable Position coming up unless you specifically make terrain with that purpose in mind.


I do have one gripe with "choosing" a mission, as it were. And that's a narrative approach - it's rare that you'd get that kind of choice in a real war, your objectives would be dictated for you, especially if your orders are coming from above. It's not like the Colonel wakes up in the morning and thinks, "you know what? I fancy taking a bridge today, let's go do that". So I'd always prefer to roll that D6 rather than pick a mission out myself, but if my opponent particularly wants to choose one for the fun of it, that's fine by me.

 Super Ready wrote:

I do have one gripe with "choosing" a mission, as it were. And that's a narrative approach - it's rare that you'd get that kind of choice in a real war, your objectives would be dictated for you, especially if your orders are coming from above. It's not like the Colonel wakes up in the morning and thinks, "you know what? I fancy taking a bridge today, let's go do that". So I'd always prefer to roll that D6 rather than pick a mission out myself, but if my opponent particularly wants to choose one for the fun of it, that's fine by me.

The most common reason folks at my FLGS will either pick, or re-roll, is if we know one or both armies will have a problem with a particular mission. Perfect example: Narrow the Search in 8th. Its a mission with a mandated Null Zone in the middle. That makes it next to impossible for certain forces to actually function, so to be fun if those particular player(s) are involved, we'll just do something different.

Takes an added 15 seconds to resolve the extra dice rolls. No muss, no fuss.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
The objective game is just lining up and killing them with style.

Thats not how 9th works. It wasnt how 8th worked either, especially if you were playing Maelstrom.

Really, in 9th I only see there are two relevant decision points here when it comes to choosing a mission:

1. Open Play or Matched Play?
2. How many Point or Power Level are we using?

Both of these are decided before you even make your list. If you are playing a scheduled game, that should have happened when you made the schedule. If it is a pick-up game, you should have a couple of appropriate list ready when you arrive at the store.

So you now know you are playing X-type of game at Y Point/Power level:

a) Matched Play game - roll on the table for scenario from the BRB (or CA Tournament mission of that's your thing). Read the mission rules and get started.

b) Open Play game - use the Open play scenario from the BRB (there are three, but each dictates a specific player army size ratio, so really only one depending upon that) or open up your Open War deck and follow the rules form there.

Either way, this should take less than 5 minutes, not including setting up terrain and deploying.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
It's a little strange because they're honestly not that complicated or overwhelming and if you can memorize pages and pages of rules, for both the core game and your army, then just spending time familiarizing yourself with a mission shouldn't be too difficult. It sounds like the group you play with is making it more complex than it should be despite the book itself providing easy ways to choose: if you're playing a 1001-2000 point game you just roll a d6 and whichever the result is; that's your mission. There you go. That's all it takes. It's even in the rulebook.

I would also say that not being interested in any kind of mission (whether its open, narrative or matched) really means you're missing out on the main draw of actually playing 40k. The game on its own is not particularly interesting or packed with depth. It's the missions that allow it to showcase that; whether its forging a narrative and a storyline or by providing interesting scenarios and tactical choices. If you like two armies sitting in their deployment zones just rolling dice and removing models, then you do you, but it's not really where the actual strengths of the game lie and never have.

Well I can memorise Heresy stuff because that doesn’t change every year and most weapon and unit profiles are as they were since 3rd edition. Plus there’s less difference between an Imperial Fist and Ultramarines army versus a Sisters of Battle and Genestealer Cults army. Never mind relearning AoS whenever you go back to that. We find ourselves constantly referring back to the rulebooks for reference and it massively slows the game down. So flicking through the generals handbook for AoS where there’s ton of different scenarios that get invalidated every few months is genuinely annoying.

Its not just roll D6 and pick a mission. You have three different ways to play. Picking Warlord traits. Getting command points. Figuring out force organisation with detachments. Some missions have tactical objective cards and some do not; because reasons. Haven’t even touched that TBH. Some have random environment rules. You have to pick the rules for every type of scenery. It’s a lot.

Picture this. Your mate asks you to pick a random mission. Well which books? We have all the Psychic Awakening and Vigilus ones which I’ve never read and most of them are faction specific. You’ve also got environment rules scattered in other booms which you can sprinkle
onto these. So you end up chewing through time trying to find a suitable mission. So it’s a lot more to consider than roll d6 on one of a handful of missions.

Honestly I don’t think the scenario adds anything tangible because most armies are so dangerous that you can wipe the enemy out and the objectives end up following from this. Even if you scratch an objective win somehow, you’ve not really won if your armies been shot off the board and caused no casualties. Battles are too one sided in a lot of cases.

But yeah, to me the game is already massively time consuming (8 hours to get to end of turn 3 in a 200 power game; rule book tells me this should only take 3) with us constantly referring back to the rules and anything that adds to that I just have no taste for.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
Why would you try memorizing the missions, rather than just following what it shows in the book?

Why does choosing a mission take half an hour when you are supposed to just roll a die and go with what it picks?

How do you play the game while ignoring the mission entirely? Just line up and kill each other?

I am genuinely confused by this post.

Because if you know the missions you actually can just roll a die and pick the scenario without constantly referring back to the rulebook or leaving three or four books open on various pages scattered around the room. Not having them memorised means you’re wasting time referring to rulebook and flicking through pages.

Because you have to agree with who you’re playing with what the mission is. Which rules are being used. Discuss possibly using one of the unique missions and then deciding it’s a bad idea. Flirting with the idea of adding the environment rules and randomly rolling on them. All the while aware that you’re ignoring tactical objectives. That can take half an hour, especially once you add setting up the objectives.

Beyond sit guys on my objectives in my deployment zone and drive towards those on the other side? Yeah. It works. Although I prefer close combat. The objective game is just lining up and killing them with style.

Err, mate. No.

You have a lot of things wrong here.

Firstly: Picking Warlord traits, calculating CP and doing force organisation should never be done as you get to the table. If you want to play like this, just whack some models on the table and roll dice. Before you show up to play a game, you should have an army list written down with an idea in your head of what you'll use at different sizes of game- 500 pts, 1000, or 2000. Doing this at the table wastes time and means you're likely to tailor against your opponent. Show up prepared.

I don't know whether you're talking about AoS or 40k here, or whether you just keep pinging between the two to complain. In AoS, you roll for each piece of terrain - 'realmscape feature' to get rules. This is fine, it takes a couple minutes. It's a very important part of AoS. In 40k this is the opposite, each piece of terrain has a standardised set of rules that in order to play the game you need to know. And if you don't, you should definitely learn them to prevent religiously looking in the book. You just say 'this is ruins' or 'this is industrial' or even easier 'this is obscuring/light cover' and 'this is dense cover'. And if you're complaining about having to do that, then play with no terrain and see how fun it is.

I'm picturing my mate asking me to generate a mission. I roll a d6, and look in the 9th edition core book and find the strike force mission number that I rolled for. Simple. You could play GT pack/chapter approved missions, but evidently your games aren't competitive. In 9th edition, these are the only missions available. They are all valid and fine. They're actually a lot of fun. They're not too hard to memorise, either. In fact with you talking about tactical objective cards are you even playing 9th edition? 8th edition maelstrom used cards, but those missions aren't used any more.

200 power games: is that 200 each or between you? because if you each have 200 then that game is enormous (thats ~4000 points per side, bigger than GW recommends for normal 40k) it isn't surprising your games takes so long.


You seem to overall be incredibly dismissive of actually playing an objective based game.

Honestly I don’t think the scenario adds anything tangible because most armies are so dangerous that you can wipe the enemy out and the objectives end up following from this. Even if you scratch an objective win somehow, you’ve not really won if your armies been shot off the board and caused no casualties. Battles are too one sided in a lot of cases.

The fun of 40k, for me, is playing to score VPs. With 9th and the arrival of secondaries as well as changes to how points are scored, doing so is very tactically challenging and requires clever plays and intricate list construction. If you're playing a game that is too one sided it is not the missions fault, it is instead the armies. In 9th you can still win even if you cause 0 casualties by cleverly playing the mission. And if you do win by doing this, you have played very well. I recently was in a game that I lost 69 points to 70, and at the end of the game I had only my primaris captain and 2 intercessors remaining, while my opponent had maybe 1200 points of his stuff left. It was a fantastic game that was not one sided and was just bad luck on my part.



I apologise if this post comes off as snarky. I recommend that you pick up the 9th edition core book if you don't have it, and take your time to read through the entire thing, to make yourself familiar with all the rules. I also recommend you and your group start writing 2000 point army lists instead of using power, so that a more equal footing can be achieved. Hopefully if you do these things you'll be able to appreciate playing missions and enjoy 40k more.
If this isn't what you want, then it is equally as fun to chuck an army on the table and roll some dice.

 Super Ready wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Its not just roll D6 and pick a mission. You have three different ways to play. Picking Warlord traits. Getting command points. Figuring out force organisation with detachments. Some missions have tactical objective cards and some do not; because reasons. Haven’t even touched that TBH. Some have random environment rules. You have to pick the rules for every type of scenery. It’s a lot.

I dunno, sounds to me like you just have trouble making up your mind on the mission in the first place (which is actually a fair shout if you have all of the expansion books and so on, choice paralysis is a real thing after all).
But a lot of these are non-complaints.
For starters, how do you not know whether you're playing Open, Matched or Narrative play ahead of time? If you've arranged a game with someone, that's not a difficult choice to make. If it's a pick-up game you can pretty much expect it to be Matched, because people will have put lists and points together ahead of time. That now includes Warlord traits, force orgs and Command points, which are all decided on building the army, not by the mission itself. On the other hand if they say they'd like to play an Open or Narrative game instead, on the fly? Bang - that's it, that's the change done immediately. You're just rolling on a different table, quick and easy.

Environment rules... not really that difficult. If you really don't like them, pick a mission that doesn't have them. If you've rolled a D6? You only have to worry about those rules for that one game, attempting to memorise them is a bit much. Scenery gets a lot easier to handle once you have a few games under your belt, as most scenery pieces are pretty similar, which is why the rules go through a few examples. Besides which, most battlefields are only going to worry about a few types of cover anyway - I don't see Exposed Position or Unstable Position coming up unless you specifically make terrain with that purpose in mind.


I do have one gripe with "choosing" a mission, as it were. And that's a narrative approach - it's rare that you'd get that kind of choice in a real war, your objectives would be dictated for you, especially if your orders are coming from above. It's not like the Colonel wakes up in the morning and thinks, "you know what? I fancy taking a bridge today, let's go do that". So I'd always prefer to roll that D6 rather than pick a mission out myself, but if my opponent particularly wants to choose one for the fun of it, that's fine by me.

The games I play of 40k are purely part of a narrative campaign with a friend. So any mission we pick has to kind of suit what we’re doing or be generic enough that we can hammer it into the narrative. Plus you don’t want to pick a mission that gives you an unfair advantage.

Also my mate doesn’t seem to have any interest in agreeing the mission before time and similarly I don’t have any interest in that either. It’s another bit of book-keeping on top of army building and packing everything into your car to move over to play the game. By the time you’ve unpacked everything, set up the tables, set up the scenery, know you’re on the clock the last thing you want is fussing over the mission. It borders on disdain when I am asked to pick the mission.

Because we bought all the books and know they’ll be out of date within a year there’s an impetus to try to incorporate some of these rules. Yes you can just pick open play and roll two dice. But we’re partly conscious that’s not how the game is meant to be played and would like to make more use of them in way that doesn’t bog down the games even more than they already are.

By environment rules I am referring to the ones in psychic awakening. You have three random rolls to determine. Getting them isn’t the problem. Physically remembering them and having to refer to the book is.

As an aside, how long does it normally take for a 200 power game?

open war deck is your friend

Racerguy180 wrote:
open war deck is your friend

This. If you really struggle that much just pick some of these that look cool/make sense to your narrative and play.

 McMagnus Mindbullets wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
It's a little strange because they're honestly not that complicated or overwhelming and if you can memorize pages and pages of rules, for both the core game and your army, then just spending time familiarizing yourself with a mission shouldn't be too difficult. It sounds like the group you play with is making it more complex than it should be despite the book itself providing easy ways to choose: if you're playing a 1001-2000 point game you just roll a d6 and whichever the result is; that's your mission. There you go. That's all it takes. It's even in the rulebook.

I would also say that not being interested in any kind of mission (whether its open, narrative or matched) really means you're missing out on the main draw of actually playing 40k. The game on its own is not particularly interesting or packed with depth. It's the missions that allow it to showcase that; whether its forging a narrative and a storyline or by providing interesting scenarios and tactical choices. If you like two armies sitting in their deployment zones just rolling dice and removing models, then you do you, but it's not really where the actual strengths of the game lie and never have.

Well I can memorise Heresy stuff because that doesn’t change every year and most weapon and unit profiles are as they were since 3rd edition. Plus there’s less difference between an Imperial Fist and Ultramarines army versus a Sisters of Battle and Genestealer Cults army. Never mind relearning AoS whenever you go back to that. We find ourselves constantly referring back to the rulebooks for reference and it massively slows the game down. So flicking through the generals handbook for AoS where there’s ton of different scenarios that get invalidated every few months is genuinely annoying.

Its not just roll D6 and pick a mission. You have three different ways to play. Picking Warlord traits. Getting command points. Figuring out force organisation with detachments. Some missions have tactical objective cards and some do not; because reasons. Haven’t even touched that TBH. Some have random environment rules. You have to pick the rules for every type of scenery. It’s a lot.

Picture this. Your mate asks you to pick a random mission. Well which books? We have all the Psychic Awakening and Vigilus ones which I’ve never read and most of them are faction specific. You’ve also got environment rules scattered in other booms which you can sprinkle
onto these. So you end up chewing through time trying to find a suitable mission. So it’s a lot more to consider than roll d6 on one of a handful of missions.

Honestly I don’t think the scenario adds anything tangible because most armies are so dangerous that you can wipe the enemy out and the objectives end up following from this. Even if you scratch an objective win somehow, you’ve not really won if your armies been shot off the board and caused no casualties. Battles are too one sided in a lot of cases.

But yeah, to me the game is already massively time consuming (8 hours to get to end of turn 3 in a 200 power game; rule book tells me this should only take 3) with us constantly referring back to the rules and anything that adds to that I just have no taste for.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
Why would you try memorizing the missions, rather than just following what it shows in the book?

Why does choosing a mission take half an hour when you are supposed to just roll a die and go with what it picks?

How do you play the game while ignoring the mission entirely? Just line up and kill each other?

I am genuinely confused by this post.

Because if you know the missions you actually can just roll a die and pick the scenario without constantly referring back to the rulebook or leaving three or four books open on various pages scattered around the room. Not having them memorised means you’re wasting time referring to rulebook and flicking through pages.

Because you have to agree with who you’re playing with what the mission is. Which rules are being used. Discuss possibly using one of the unique missions and then deciding it’s a bad idea. Flirting with the idea of adding the environment rules and randomly rolling on them. All the while aware that you’re ignoring tactical objectives. That can take half an hour, especially once you add setting up the objectives.

Beyond sit guys on my objectives in my deployment zone and drive towards those on the other side? Yeah. It works. Although I prefer close combat. The objective game is just lining up and killing them with style.

Err, mate. No.

You have a lot of things wrong here.

Firstly: Picking Warlord traits, calculating CP and doing force organisation should never be done as you get to the table. If you want to play like this, just whack some models on the table and roll dice. Before you show up to play a game, you should have an army list written down with an idea in your head of what you'll use at different sizes of game- 500 pts, 1000, or 2000. Doing this at the table wastes time and means you're likely to tailor against your opponent. Show up prepared.

I don't know whether you're talking about AoS or 40k here, or whether you just keep pinging between the two to complain. In AoS, you roll for each piece of terrain - 'realmscape feature' to get rules. This is fine, it takes a couple minutes. It's a very important part of AoS. In 40k this is the opposite, each piece of terrain has a standardised set of rules that in order to play the game you need to know. And if you don't, you should definitely learn them to prevent religiously looking in the book. You just say 'this is ruins' or 'this is industrial' or even easier 'this is obscuring/light cover' and 'this is dense cover'. And if you're complaining about having to do that, then play with no terrain and see how fun it is.

I'm picturing my mate asking me to generate a mission. I roll a d6, and look in the 9th edition core book and find the strike force mission number that I rolled for. Simple. You could play GT pack/chapter approved missions, but evidently your games aren't competitive. In 9th edition, these are the only missions available. They are all valid and fine. They're actually a lot of fun. They're not too hard to memorise, either. In fact with you talking about tactical objective cards are you even playing 9th edition? 8th edition maelstrom used cards, but those missions aren't used any more.

200 power games: is that 200 each or between you? because if you each have 200 then that game is enormous (thats ~4000 points per side, bigger than GW recommends for normal 40k) it isn't surprising your games takes so long.


You seem to overall be incredibly dismissive of actually playing an objective based game.

Honestly I don’t think the scenario adds anything tangible because most armies are so dangerous that you can wipe the enemy out and the objectives end up following from this. Even if you scratch an objective win somehow, you’ve not really won if your armies been shot off the board and caused no casualties. Battles are too one sided in a lot of cases.

The fun of 40k, for me, is playing to score VPs. With 9th and the arrival of secondaries as well as changes to how points are scored, doing so is very tactically challenging and requires clever plays and intricate list construction. If you're playing a game that is too one sided it is not the missions fault, it is instead the armies. In 9th you can still win even if you cause 0 casualties by cleverly playing the mission. And if you do win by doing this, you have played very well. I recently was in a game that I lost 69 points to 70, and at the end of the game I had only my primaris captain and 2 intercessors remaining, while my opponent had maybe 1200 points of his stuff left. It was a fantastic game that was not one sided and was just bad luck on my part.



I apologise if this post comes off as snarky. I recommend that you pick up the 9th edition core book if you don't have it, and take your time to read through the entire thing, to make yourself familiar with all the rules. I also recommend you and your group start writing 2000 point army lists instead of using power, so that a more equal footing can be achieved. Hopefully if you do these things you'll be able to appreciate playing missions and enjoy 40k more.
If this isn't what you want, then it is equally as fun to chuck an army on the table and roll some dice.

You can pick Warlord traits but my mate prefers to roll for them. Yes the army lists are usually done well in advance. Which makes doing anymore record keeping and having to remember rules for scenery irritating.

About ten minutes and then you’ll have to keep track of what terrain feature has what ability and then awkwardly try and find the page with the rules on. Really didn’t like that mechanic in AoS and don’t see why they’re bringing it to 40k. It’s a lot of effort for negligible gain.

Yeah I think they changed that again. It was tactical objective cards but then they invalidated them for something different where it’s a few set ones. Kind of sucks if you actually bought those tactical cards.

Ah. We didn’t see the combined power level in brackets at the top of the chart. Yeah it was 250 power a side.

Because I am kind of cynical about the objective game. The same points get made about Horus Heresy where people rock up with quad phosphex, sicaran arcus and drop pod Leviathans. They talked about this mental 4D chess a lot. Basically a lot of it is exploiting the mechanics of the game.

You know that you can write things down to help you remember, right? A sheet of paper, write down important things (terrain, traits, tally of command points), and tear it up and place it next to the relevant sections of the battlefield.

Honestly, it's no more difficult than remembering what profile a weapon has, or what rule a unit does, or stratagems, or subfaction rules.

Don't blame the rules for your group of players deciding to play the game in an inefficient and awkward manner then. I have never seen anybody roll for their Warlord traits right before a game begins, this is stuff you do in list building and would be done and sorted out beforehand. In fact in 9th you HAVE to sort that stuff out in your list. Similarly if you're "on the clock" and time is of the essence then the night before, just pick a mission from the book and be done with it. Or do like the book says and like we've all been saying and just roll for it.

The terrain effects in 40k are actually super simple and straightforward (in actual execution, the wording is overly verbose). Every set of ruins has the same rule. Every set of woods has the same rule etc. If you know the rules for one of the ruins pieces, you know the rules for the rest of them on the board. And the Ruins rules themselves are basically providing a cover save, allowing certain types of models easy movement through them and being obscuring if over 5" tall. Most of those rules were already in 8th Edition with exactly the same effects. I don't understand why any of this is so difficult, especially when there's all the other rules, units and mechanics you've clearly memorized.

How we pick missions (for whatever game, not just 40k)?

Who ever gets their first sets up a good looking table. Since it's rarely known what forces will be used, & we determine missions randomly, this rarely provides any sort of advantage.
Once everyones there (we play alot of multi-player games) we shuffle a deck*, draw a card, turn to the listed page of the indicated book & set up the Deployment Zones and read the mission out loud.

Any memorization occurs simply by playing the mission over time.

*Whatever the game, we've made decks of mission cards compiled from all our applicable books as well as a "Missions Binder". A copy stays at each of our houses (of those who host games anyways) & a copy at the shop.

I just have a list I copied from a friend, which lists which secondaries to pick vs which army, and what is required to do to score in the primaris and secondaries. Warlord traits I never change , same with psychic powers, relics as I never take any, and the army is limited to what I own, so the games start fast. And they have to, It takes me 2 hours and 2 buses to get to the store, and even longer to get back, so time is of the essence.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Don't blame the rules for your group of players deciding to play the game in an inefficient and awkward manner then. I have never seen anybody roll for their Warlord traits right before a game begins, this is stuff you do in list building and would be done and sorted out beforehand. In fact in 9th you HAVE to sort that stuff out in your list. Similarly if you're "on the clock" and time is of the essence then the night before, just pick a mission from the book and be done with it. Or do like the book says and like we've all been saying and just roll for it.

The terrain effects in 40k are actually super simple and straightforward (in actual execution, the wording is overly verbose). Every set of ruins has the same rule. Every set of woods has the same rule etc. If you know the rules for one of the ruins pieces, you know the rules for the rest of them on the board. And the Ruins rules themselves are basically providing a cover save, allowing certain types of models easy movement through them and being obscuring if over 5" tall. Most of those rules were already in 8th Edition with exactly the same effects. I don't understand why any of this is so difficult, especially when there's all the other rules, units and mechanics you've clearly memorized.

Because he considers it to be gaming the system. Once you know what the best Warlord trait is, readily available online, there’s no reason to pick any other. So either it’s a fluffy one or just randomise it like you do psychic powers. Another round of rolling the on various charts scattered across the books.

Because from my perspective they are constantly changing the rules for terrain and everything else for that matter. It’s a layer of complexity that adds nothing to the game and it’s a waste of time learning it on top of everything else for the army.

I said I’ve memorised the Horus Heresy rules. I’ve definitely not memorised all the rules for Astra Militarum, Ultramarines, Raptors,, Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Silence and Genestealer Cult; plus Inquisitors and Assassins. Which I rotate in the narrative campaign. Which again, only recently changed and seem to be getting continuous and annual updates. I could tell you the rules for an Intercessor but if you asked me all the guns on an Executioner or Redemptor then the books open.

It’s not like I’am playing day in and day out with the same 1000 points of stuff. I’ve not ever felt like, this is getting repetitive, let’s go for the more advanced rules. There’s already a crap ton of book keeping and rules learning constantly going on. To the point where I’ve no interest or motivation to consider the advanced rules or scenario stuff.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Because from my perspective they are constantly changing the rules for terrain and everything else for that matter. It’s a layer of complexity that adds nothing to the game and it’s a waste of time learning it on top of everything else for the army.

It sounds like you've been playing with little or no terrain at all? Or at least, not using the rules for them. If that's the case, it's no wonder that you've got the impression that games are just a case of blasting away and worrying about objectives later.
You should really have enough terrain that positioning becomes important if you want to protect a valuable unit, or take out one of your opponents.
For the rules side of it, maybe agree to have every terrain piece on the table have the same rules, so that it doesn't get confusing? I would suggest Obscuring (blocks line of sight unless within the terrain) and Dense Cover (-1 to hit shooting) as the bare minimum.

Fair enough about the Psychic Awakening environment stuff, I wasn't aware of those and I can see using three rolls every game getting a bit much on top of everything else. So... just don't use them. They are optional, after all.

The most important rule still applies, to have fun, and on that basis pretty much everything in the game is optional if you and your opponent agree to it. The problem is that if you're not playing with some level of decent terrain then yes, the game will get boring. There's only so much narrative you can put into "our perfectly points-matched armies meet on an open field to kill each other".

Ultimately - what I'm hearing is that both you and your opponent want to play narrative games... so you want the match-ups to mean something... which is great! But neither of you is prepared to put the creativity time in to figure that narrative out. If that's the case, may I humbly suggest that narrative play may not be the way to go for the two of you - maybe keep your games to open play instead, and try and find an opponent that loves the narrative setup instead/as well.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


It’s not like I’am playing day in and day out with the same 1000 points of stuff. I’ve not ever felt like, this is getting repetitive, let’s go for the more advanced rules. There’s already a crap ton of book keeping and rules learning constantly going on. To the point where I’ve no interest or motivation to consider the advanced rules or scenario stuff.

You know what, you sound like a dude from my school, who changed his main sport 6 times in 6 semsters and complained to the trainers that he is not having any visible progres. Of course if you don't train, and don't know what opponents may or do play you are geting bad results and feel as if the game wasn't fun.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Because he considers it to be gaming the system. Once you know what the best Warlord trait is, readily available online, there’s no reason to pick any other. So either it’s a fluffy one or just randomise it like you do psychic powers. Another round of rolling the on various charts scattered across the books.

Literally none of this is accurate. Powers, traits and relics are *HIGHLY* contextualized by the list you bring. What's "the best" for say, an MSU infantry force isnt going to remotely do the same thing for a combined arms mechanized force, or a single unit deathstar build.

I get that you're working with someone with...lets go with "obtuse" opinions about gameplay here, but take a second to think for yourself once and a while.

First off, there’s no “wrong” way to play. If you and your opponent agree then go to it.

Next, if you make up some terrain cards, it’s quick reference. You could even go so far as making the rules simple, yes/no answers.

Blocks LOS? Y/N
*If No, does shooting through the cover apply -1 to hit? Y/N
While in cover, or being shot through cover, add +1 to armour saves.
Does this terrain slow models down? Y/N
*If yes, reduce model’s movement by 2 inches.

Basic terrain rules can reduce record keeping at the table.


I agree that there’s an over abundance of rules that stack on rules, that stack on rules... but I strongly encourage you to consider list building separate to game setup. If your opponent wants to roll warlord traits, do that sometime before the match, like the day before. If you have a “core force” you usually use, consider keeping it on a paper and then you only need to fiddle with fewer points later on. Maybe your core batallion is always 2 of this troop, 1 of that troop, a leader with cool sword and deadly pistol, and support guy with Aura or awesome and the dagger of doom. That’s 500 points. I also know my big toy with cool guns is 300 points, so that’s 800 off the bat. I like these models, so two units of that are another 300... 1100 out of 1500 points already sorted. Now I take 400 points of fluff or fun or whatever and my list is done.


All of that said! You might like other games better. Godtear, for example, is played by rolling a d6 for mission, choosing 3 champions (with their followers). Setting up a few objective hexes on the board and away you go! No real list building, per se, you just choose which 3 champs you want to play that day. No upgrades, no fiddling about, just grab and go.

If you find that there’s too much going on, try playing 500 point games till you’re comfortable with things. Or perhaps taking a break is in order. I know when I’m stressed that trying to manage the minutiae of things is just aggravating. Maybe this is just where things are bubbling out.

Hope you’re having fun. That’s really the point and if you aren’t, maybe step back and see if this is what you want to be doing with your time.

 Super Ready wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Because from my perspective they are constantly changing the rules for terrain and everything else for that matter. It’s a layer of complexity that adds nothing to the game and it’s a waste of time learning it on top of everything else for the army.

It sounds like you've been playing with little or no terrain at all? Or at least, not using the rules for them. If that's the case, it's no wonder that you've got the impression that games are just a case of blasting away and worrying about objectives later.
You should really have enough terrain that positioning becomes important if you want to protect a valuable unit, or take out one of your opponents.
For the rules side of it, maybe agree to have every terrain piece on the table have the same rules, so that it doesn't get confusing? I would suggest Obscuring (blocks line of sight unless within the terrain) and Dense Cover (-1 to hit shooting) as the bare minimum.

Fair enough about the Psychic Awakening environment stuff, I wasn't aware of those and I can see using three rolls every game getting a bit much on top of everything else. So... just don't use them. They are optional, after all.

The most important rule still applies, to have fun, and on that basis pretty much everything in the game is optional if you and your opponent agree to it. The problem is that if you're not playing with some level of decent terrain then yes, the game will get boring. There's only so much narrative you can put into "our perfectly points-matched armies meet on an open field to kill each other".

Ultimately - what I'm hearing is that both you and your opponent want to play narrative games... so you want the match-ups to mean something... which is great! But neither of you is prepared to put the creativity time in to figure that narrative out. If that's the case, may I humbly suggest that narrative play may not be the way to go for the two of you - maybe keep your games to open play instead, and try and find an opponent that loves the narrative setup instead/as well.

We’ve got an entire cities worth of terrain between us. Multiple levels, barricades, walkways; the works. Even got a full zone mortalis board. It’s why giving them all rules, nicknames and quirks is annoying. Common sense usually prevails with LOS. Terrain only matters for where you’d be chipping away a unit as it slowly advances towards you. An old school 3rd edition chainsword charge. In 8th and 9th you can basically delete any unit in a single round of fire. Does it stop me sniping a tank with Executioner across the board. Maybe but that’s not what’s doing the damage. Both armies are trying to move to shoot each other, not hiding from the enemy.

Which would be a waste of money. It’s a double edged sword. I like the idea of themed rules. But it’s on top of all the other junk to remember and keep track of.

You misunderstand. Between us we’ve done a full running narrative in WhatsApp with the various characters and their exploits before and after each battle. That’s fun. Going through dozens of pages in multiple books for a scenario is not. So yeah, we enjoy the narrative side of things.

It feels like a chore. You feel like you’re being asked to do more than you’ve already done to get the game organised and setup. I’ve tried asking that whoever I am playing picks or rolls for the mission but he seems to have some expectation that balls in my corner for some reason. Like I write a lot of the lore but I don’t really have any inspiration to make a scenario or feel a need to look for one. Unless it’s something really esoteric like “rescue mission” where you’re not fighting a conventional battle. But other than that it’s just army A fighting army B. There’s no reason to dress that up. I don’t see any issue with just going with basic missions whilst not knowing the rules very well.










Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sterling191 wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Because he considers it to be gaming the system. Once you know what the best Warlord trait is, readily available online, there’s no reason to pick any other. So either it’s a fluffy one or just randomise it like you do psychic powers. Another round of rolling the on various charts scattered across the books.

Literally none of this is accurate. Powers, traits and relics are *HIGHLY* contextualized by the list you bring. What's "the best" for say, an MSU infantry force isnt going to remotely do the same thing for a combined arms mechanized force, or a single unit deathstar build.

I get that you're working with someone with...lets go with "obtuse" opinions about gameplay here, but take a second to think for yourself once and a while.

It’s more good natured than that. So when I took my Sisters I’d used command points to get the extra Warlord traits and boost the Imagifier so she had two litanies. So he was like, well, Mark of Slannesh on the Iron Warriors havocs. Fun times.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


It’s not like I’am playing day in and day out with the same 1000 points of stuff. I’ve not ever felt like, this is getting repetitive, let’s go for the more advanced rules. There’s already a crap ton of book keeping and rules learning constantly going on. To the point where I’ve no interest or motivation to consider the advanced rules or scenario stuff.

You know what, you sound like a dude from my school, who changed his main sport 6 times in 6 semsters and complained to the trainers that he is not having any visible progres. Of course if you don't train, and don't know what opponents may or do play you are geting bad results and feel as if the game wasn't fun.

There’s a limit on how much 40k you can play. Firstly we weren’t really playing any last two year. Other priorities. Then, at a new game club when I was interested everything got put on lockdown. Now things are kind of open but still strained.

You vary up the army because it’s fun. Because you’ve got them lying around and would like to use them. Because that’s unit has been painted up.Thats more important as a motivator than sticking with a set list and using it over and over again to memorise it. I mean, it would be pretty silly to paint up a Sisters army and not use them until the campaign had ended. So yeah, throw them in, work out the rules as we go.

Fair enough, sounds like I did indeed read the situation wrong. ...is it a case of having a struggle finding a mission that actually fits what's going on in the narrative, then?
If so, you might be better off simply looking at the mission briefings to see what fits what's currently going on. Those briefings give a good indication of what the mission will actually feel like to play out.