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Buckle up: This is going to be rather long. But I will try to be as brief as possible.
Disclaimer: For a long time I took part in the hobby only in a passive manner. I watched battle reports but did not play. During the pandemic and the advent of a new edition me and a relative discovered that we both loved to watch these battle reports (especially the videos from the people at Tabletop Tactics) and decided we would start our own armies. 9th edition looked very promising so he started a space marine army. Me, I always loved the Tau models (though i did not like how they operated in 8th). However the more I learn about the system the more I think there are fundamental flaws in the it.
The way I see it these flaws are as follows:

1. Too many moving parts
There are simply too many armies and models to achieve any sort of reasonable balance. The fact that GW makes its money through sale of new models incentivises them to constantly add to a system which is already too large to give every faction a distinctive playstyle while keeping them on roughly the same efficiency.

2. Economy of actions
The second biggest flaw is the fact that there are different armies that can take part at different phases of the game. A battleround (or a game for that matter) is a representation of a set time period. However the amount of actions every unit can take during that time is dependant on the phases in which it can act. This will always favor units and armies that can and want to act in as many phases as possible because there is literally no downside to it. Performing a psychic action is not affecting the ability to act in the shooting phase.
This is not only affecting game balance it also breaks the simultaion aspect of the game. Because it is illogical that in the time a unit is channeling the warp another unit would not be using this time to interact with the battlefield in another way (like for example pulling the trigger of its gun a few more times). Yet the unit who is only partaking in one phase does not gain any actions in other phases. While the psychic phase is - for the most part - relative negligible because most armies only have a few token units that can act in the psychic phase the same cannot be said for the charge and combat phases. Which leads me to my third problem:

3. Melee is a weightstone around the neck of this game
The aforementioned problem is heavily exarcebated in the way melee combat is forced in a game of guns, deathrays and artillery (and 9th edition is showing this flaw more than the previous editions). In order to make melee work in 40k the last two phases of the game give you a plathora of additional actions without any cost associated with it. Your average infanty unit is moving 6 inches (some more some less). If this unit using all of its actions during a battle round to cover as much gound as possible it will move 6 plus 1d6 inches. However if the very same unit partakes in the charge and fight phases it does not forgo its shooting, it charges an additional 1d6 (in comparison to the advance roll) and is able to make several attacks with its melee weapons. To add to that it is also given several free move actions along the way (consolidate and pile in movement). This means that a unit that partakes in the melee phase is not only given essentially free attack it is also up to three times as mobile as a unit that is not acting in those phases. In an edition where movement is king, this constitutes a bonus that is not reflected in its point cost.

I could elaborate on many of these points ( and I may in subsequent posts) but if you got to this point you deserve a break from my lacking english and thank you for your indulgence.

Counterpoint: In basically all previous editions, armies that specialized in Melee had to deal with the fact that armies specialized in ranged attacks could consistently and reliably annihilate them through weight of fire / excessive firepower, leading to a situation where the without-fail-best-option more often than not was to bring a static gunline.
Realistic? Yeah, sure.
Fun? Not for a lot of people.

But, it looks like you're saying you didn't play in previous editions, and while you watched some battle reports, that's not quite the same thing and so I'm afraid the people who will most agree with your stance are the ones who would prefer to only play static gunlines. And those are boring. Just.... so.... boring....

Well, not to sound rude, but this game has existed for 33 years with both psychic and melee phases as a significant part of the game. If you watched batreps before playing you knew that.

There are other games without psychic phases. There are probably games without melee phases. You could have chosen to play one of those games. You didn't.

As for too many armies, they've built up over 33 years. Sorry you weren't there in the beginning, but those of us who were have been waiting a huge chunk of those 33 years for the army we've wanted since 1987. Now that we have it, no, we don't want to give it up to make life easier for you. For example, there's a thread in Dakka right now about how Deathwatch shouldn't exist. But the Death Watch were supposed to get a Codex in 2003, but some jackass decided a new edition was a better idea, and Deathwatch got swept under the rug for 15 years.

And so yeah, those of us who waited those 15 years aren't willing to let the army go for that guy either.

Funny how many people in the 40k general discussion don't play or actively hate 40k.

There are other games. Play them. Be happy. Leave the rest of us alone.

 Deikov wrote:
Counterpoint: In basically all previous editions, armies that specialized in Melee had to deal with the fact that armies specialized in ranged attacks could consistently and reliably annihilate them through weight of fire / excessive firepower, leading to a situation where the without-fail-best-option more often than not was to bring a static gunline.
Realistic? Yeah, sure.
Fun? Not for a lot of people.

But, it looks like you're saying you didn't play in previous editions, and while you watched some battle reports, that's not quite the same thing and so I'm afraid the people who will most agree with your stance are the ones who would prefer to only play static gunlines. And those are boring. Just.... so.... boring....

Melee and mobile shooting armies tended to dominate previous editions such as 3rd and 4th for sure, and as the archetypal static shooting army the Imperial Guard has rarely been among the power lists in most editions. Many armies built around CC did astoundingly well in 5th/6th/7th.

Melee functionality however has been mucked with in a way that's been hard to adjust for. In older editions, melee units didn't need to physically kill every model to destroy a unit, winning combat by 1 wound was sufficient to force a morale test that could result in running down and destroying the enemy unit, or in the case of Fearless units, forcing additional saves/wounds onto them and doubling damage output. Units are much faster now, and have a lot more gimmicks and movement (turn 1 charges and assaulting out of deep strike from reserves that guaranteed arrive turn 2 exactly where you want them without scattering or that can potentially cover 24"+ in a turn and dive into CC are insanely broken in the contexts of these older editions) but often can feel rather pillow fisted next to shooting.

Your very first message and it's another "Why 40K is BAD !".

You're gonna feel right at home on Dakkadakka.

*Yawns*

Well I thought that the last point would not be percieved so well. So let me clarify some points

First: By no means do I want to tell anybody how to play and what to play. I realise that a lot of armies rely on melee and that there is no way to change something that is so deeply ingrained in the system. This is from a perspective from someone who likes a lot of aspects of this game but is right now trying to figure out if this system is for him or not. So I made this threat to get other perspectives on the thoughts I have. That does not mean I want to change the system to my needs.

Watching and playing the game is different: entirely correct

Melee armies were decimated in previuos editions: Also entirely correct. It seems to me that this aspect of the game seems to always to be either totally restricting to the melee armies o to the shooting armies. Either melee armies get shot of the board while the player is desperately trying to get in contact or it is to the detriment of the shooting army. Neither option seems to be much fun for the players involved. But during the brief phase I was "involved" with 40k (7th to 9th) there seems to have be no balance between these two extremes. I guess my question to those of you who are here is if there was a balance at any point.

As for the boring gunline part: I agree. As long as there are no meaningful options other than shooting to kill ( for example flanking, supression etc.) static gunlines are boring as hell. Which is exactly why I did not like Tau in 8th. I really hope 9th edition would change that by way of its objectives. But it just seems to have swung to the other extreme again.

Now I do not know if any of my ramblings have the potential for a fruitful discussion. You can certainly take the "Hey if you dont like it you can sod off" approach. Or ignore this thread altogether. However if you have a different perspective and want to share...maybe I might see things differently


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Selfcontrol wrote:
Your very first message and it's another "Why 40K is BAD !".

You're gonna feel right at home on Dakkadakka.

*Yawns*

Yeah I guess I deserved that. No I do not think 40 is the BAAD. If so I would not have started it. It has many aspects that I love. The dedication with which people build and paint their armies. The social aspect of it. The models and the tables. All of it is great and I do not want to minimise the fun any of you had or has with this game. But there seem some aspects that work rather less well. The fact that some of you "suffered" through previous editions (not your quote) seems to give creedence to my third point.

Your not entirely wrong about the game being big and bloated and terrible and GW keeps making it worse.

If you and your friend are interested in the idea of getting a 2k point army I would recommend you instead look at apocalypse as a rule set. 1) you don't need to buy codexes. 2) the rules are much better. 3) the balance between shooting and melee is actually pretty great without any of the baggage. 3) it works great playing a roughly regular sized game of 40k.

The downside is it is not updated very often (it has received 1 update since release) and as a result a lot of the new shiny toys that have been released recently are not in apoc yet (if ever).

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
Buckle up: This is going to be rather long. But I will try to be as brief as possible.
Disclaimer: For a long time I took part in the hobby only in a passive manner. I watched battle reports but did not play. During the pandemic and the advent of a new edition me and a relative discovered that we both loved to watch these battle reports (especially the videos from the people at Tabletop Tactics) and decided we would start our own armies. 9th edition looked very promising so he started a space marine army. Me, I always loved the Tau models (though i did not like how they operated in 8th). However the more I learn about the system the more I think there are fundamental flaws in the it.
The way I see it these flaws are as follows:
.

relevant part of the post is highlighted and increased in size. Let's break this down to what the post REALLY is shall we.

"Dear Dakkadakka, I started playing 40k recently, my friend recently started space marines and I recently started Tau, it absolutely sucks that he beat me and I blame the existance of psykers, which I don't have, and melee which I effectively don't have for this, 40k needs to get rid of it"

I almost didn't post in this thread at all... for the topic's sake, while you make some decent points, it's an unusual choice of first post but at least you have the grace to recognise why people would be defensive.
The real reason I posted? ...was to say that your English is exceptional. Far from lacking at all.

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
...

I have to say I read your points before your disclaimer and I thought "this comes from a Tau player"

The truth is, you picked the wrong army at the wrong time. Tau don't work in this edition, yet. It has nothing inherently to do with the action economy, as Tau could never participate meaningfully in more than the shooting phase since their first codex in 3rd edition, but were competitive nonetheless. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

This edition is simply not made for their current rooster of units. On the other side you have Marines, who can play every phase well. For a beginner, I would really really not recommend Tau at the moment. Hopefully they get their fix with a new codex, but nobody knows when or if that will be.

My best advice for you is to put Tau on hold and get a better rounded army, if you want to play 40k.

 Super Ready wrote:
I almost didn't post in this thread at all... for the topic's sake, while you make some decent points, it's an unusual choice of first post but at least you have the grace to recognise why people would be defensive.
The real reason I posted? ...was to say that your English is exceptional. Far from lacking at all.

Very kind. Thank you. And yes I kind of feel bad that this is my first contribution and I get why people would not react well. Like I said, I am trying to decide if this is the hobby for me.


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a_typical_hero wrote:

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
...

I have to say I read your points before your disclaimer and I thought "this comes from a Tau player"

(snip)

My best advice for you is to put Tau on hold and get a better rounded army, if you want to play 40k.

Yes I am certainly not unbiased in this respect.
Thanks for the advise. I might do that.

PenitentJake wrote:
...Funny how many people in the 40k general discussion don't play or actively hate 40k.

There are other games. Play them. Be happy. Leave the rest of us alone.

The reason the 40k discussion is full of people who don't play/actively hate 40k is that they'd really rather play something else, but nobody plays anything else, because everyone assumes that people only play current tournament-standard 40k and refuse to consider trying anything else. If you want the grumblers to go play something they like and leave you alone someone has to come along and break 40k's stranglehold on the market that leaves them with nothing else to play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
...Relevant part of the post is highlighted and increased in size. Let's break this down to what the post REALLY is shall we.

"Dear Dakkadakka, I started playing 40k recently, my friend recently started space marines and I recently started Tau, it absolutely sucks that he beat me and I blame the existance of psykers, which I don't have, and melee which I effectively don't have for this, 40k needs to get rid of it"

...Which is there because GW decided to make an entire Codex that can't participate in a huge chunk of the game, whose power fluctuates wildly depending on whether the people working on the core rulebook remembered they did that once. If this thread was being written in the height of the 6e/7e leafblower era it'd be the other way around, the Marine player would be here grumbling about why he has to pay for all these melee stats when the Tau just blast him off the table.

I think the best move when you encounter problems/issues/challenges within a game or venture, especially when you are new to it, is not to consider that the venture itself is at fault.


That is not to say there are no faults within the game, but that if its your first instinct then there is a high chance that you might be making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Or that you might even be missing some key elements which is causing some more minor imbalances/issues to be greatly magnified.




I'm by no means saying 40K is perfect, nor that your points don't have merit. However at the same time if I were starting a new strategy game and was encounter problems my first thoughts would be to try and find resolutions/solutions. These might be models to take; different ways the terrain is setup; different strategic options during the game. There are many aspects and any one or several could be contributing.

Basically I'd arm myself with the best understanding I could find to meet the challenge rather than admit defeat and say that its the system that is at fault.

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
...Yes I am certainly not unbiased in this respect.
Thanks for the advise. I might do that.

Be aware that the "I buy models I like, and then discover that they're absolutely useless and I need to toss them and buy something completely different" is a core part of the 40k experience.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
...Yes I am certainly not unbiased in this respect.
Thanks for the advise. I might do that.

Be aware that the "I buy models I like, and then discover that they're absolutely useless and I need to toss them and buy something completely different" is a core part of the 40k experience.

I should note the tossing of models is purely optional and not an advised step. Besides with building and painting being quite time consuming stages (especially as you get a bit more skilled and experiment more so) the whole hobby side of building models is part of the experience unto itself. There are even those who never play, yet spend hours building and painting. So never consider it time wasted.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
...Funny how many people in the 40k general discussion don't play or actively hate 40k.

There are other games. Play them. Be happy. Leave the rest of us alone.

The reason the 40k discussion is full of people who don't play/actively hate 40k is that they'd really rather play something else, but nobody plays anything else, because everyone assumes that people only play current tournament-standard 40k and refuse to consider trying anything else. If you want the grumblers to go play something they like and leave you alone someone has to come along and break 40k's stranglehold on the market that leaves them with nothing else to play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
...Relevant part of the post is highlighted and increased in size. Let's break this down to what the post REALLY is shall we.

"Dear Dakkadakka, I started playing 40k recently, my friend recently started space marines and I recently started Tau, it absolutely sucks that he beat me and I blame the existance of psykers, which I don't have, and melee which I effectively don't have for this, 40k needs to get rid of it"

...Which is there because GW decided to make an entire Codex that can't participate in a huge chunk of the game, whose power fluctuates wildly depending on whether the people working on the core rulebook remembered they did that once. If this thread was being written in the height of the 6e/7e leafblower era it'd be the other way around, the Marine player would be here grumbling about why he has to pay for all these melee stats when the Tau just blast him off the table.

on that I agree with, Tau are a poorly designed faction and that needs to be addressed. IMHO the easiest way to do this would be for GW to lean back into non-Tau auxilleries. and give some some psykic and melee auxilleries.
ohh here's a random idea.. take the Megarachinids from the horus Heresy and make them a member of the Tau empire!

When the game itself is so dependant on which models, and codexes you use, and there are literally a thousand of them, it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to know the game.

So many of the games interactions are ONLY found in a single codex. How can you expect anyone to know them all, how they interact with each other, or if your opponent is reading their rules correctly or not?

 Overread wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
...Yes I am certainly not unbiased in this respect.
Thanks for the advise. I might do that.

Be aware that the "I buy models I like, and then discover that they're absolutely useless and I need to toss them and buy something completely different" is a core part of the 40k experience.

I should note the tossing of models is purely optional and not an advised step. Besides with building and painting being quite time consuming stages (especially as you get a bit more skilled and experiment more so) the whole hobby side of building models is part of the experience unto itself. There are even those who never play, yet spend hours building and painting. So never consider it time wasted.

I will clarify: I use "toss" in the hyperbolic sense. I do not advocate buying models you like, painting them, putting them on the table, discovering they're garbage, and then throwing them away, I seek to use that as an example of the worst-case scenario to be avoided. If you want to play 9e be aware that external balance between Codexes is awful (it is entirely possible to pick the "wrong army") and internal balance within Codexes is still awful (even the "right army" will have pointless units). If you want to put models down on the table and play be prepared to do research ahead of time to figure out whether you're just going to get stomped every game before buying minis. If you want to buy minis you like instead of being beholden to the netlists either be prepared to gain enough system expertise to houserule fixes yourself, dig up rules from older editions of the game, or leave them on a shelf gathering dust for years until you get a new army book or a new edition comes along and suddenly they're useful.

I'm aware I sound pessimistic here. I am very pessimistic. I've played 40k for fifteen years (see comment above about nobody ever wanting to try anything different), I've had most of the armies in the game at one point or another, and pick-up game balance has only gotten worse over that time. People gushing about how 8e/9e are bold new directions for the game and GW is really fixing all the things they used to be crap at are tournament players. 9e is great for competitive people who are prepared to do their research, build their lists, masticate them over with other people, then go buy models and play a competitive game. It is terrible for people who want to buy models they like and go play random pick-up games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
...Tau are a poorly designed faction and that needs to be addressed. IMHO the easiest way to do this would be for GW to lean back into non-Tau auxilleries. and give some some psykic and melee auxilleries.
ohh here's a random idea.. take the Megarachinids from the horus Heresy and make them a member of the Tau empire!

My quick patch for my own homebrew rules is to give Breachers and Crisis/Stealth teams melee profiles on some of their guns. It gives a new role to the old battlesuits that are really getting overshadowed by the big suits these days, makes the Tau do something instead of nothing in melee, and there's canon/semi-canon precedent in the Fusion Blades and the DoW commander.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
...Funny how many people in the 40k general discussion don't play or actively hate 40k.

There are other games. Play them. Be happy. Leave the rest of us alone.

The reason the 40k discussion is full of people who don't play/actively hate 40k is that they'd really rather play something else, but nobody plays anything else, because everyone assumes that people only play current tournament-standard 40k and refuse to consider trying anything else. If you want the grumblers to go play something they like and leave you alone someone has to come along and break 40k's stranglehold on the market that leaves them with nothing else to play.

Some people love the fluff and models and wish they had a better game to round out their hobby. Some enjoy the army options and wish the game was better. Some can only find 40k opponents. I like analyzing game systems, finding problems and then devising solutions. I imagine there are a great many reasons people are on these forums.

 Overread wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Harlech Quinn wrote:
...Yes I am certainly not unbiased in this respect.
Thanks for the advise. I might do that.

Be aware that the "I buy models I like, and then discover that they're absolutely useless and I need to toss them and buy something completely different" is a core part of the 40k experience.

I should note the tossing of models is purely optional and not an advised step. Besides with building and painting being quite time consuming stages (especially as you get a bit more skilled and experiment more so) the whole hobby side of building models is part of the experience unto itself. There are even those who never play, yet spend hours building and painting. So never consider it time wasted.

Not to mention the fact that a unit that's bad now might be great once gw swings their pendulum back the other way, once they release the next codex, FAQ, CA, etc.

OP- My advice would be to keep playing, to learn every army and to play several or at least as many as you can. The last will allow you to ride out bad editions for a particular army, in my case dark eldar. Honestly pretty much all your assertions are not correct, or at least pretty over stated. The game is far to nuanced to have any of those issues be a consistent deciding factor. Psykers in particular have a huge down side now to the point of exclusion. Skill is by far the most influential factor in this game and that includes list building to greater and lesser degrees.

Anyway as a player that's been playing since 3rd and owned well over 20 armies I can tell you this is a good edition. Maybe not my favorite but definitely worth continuing.

dominuschao wrote:
OP- My advice would be to keep playing, to learn every army and to play several or at least as many as you can. The last will allow you to ride out bad editions for a particular army, in my case dark eldar. Honestly pretty much all your assertions are not correct, or at least pretty over stated. The game is far to nuanced to have any of those issues be a consistent deciding factor. Psykers in particular have a huge down side now to the point of exclusion. Skill is by far the most influential factor in this game and that includes list building to greater and lesser degrees.

Anyway as a player that's been playing since 3rd and owned well over 20 armies I can tell you this is a good edition. Maybe not my favorite but definitely worth continuing.

so in other words..... buy all the codexes, buy a lot of armies and read and study the game as much as possible, then pick the units and factions that work so that you have a chance of having a good time. That is not worth neither the time nor the investment. What that is, is a fundamental problem.

Don't put your army on hold because the internet says so or your first games went badly. Try to improve with your army, write some narrative missions or apply Handicaps if you really feel the balance is off. Since 8th edition the balance of 40K has vastly improved and FAQs and points adjustments are pumped out faster than you can paint a riptide. So if Tau seem to be at a bad spot when playing the standard eternal war missions, either wait a bit or make up different ways to play. Eternal War is really just okay for a tournament setting, outside of that you should find more interesting ways. Overall 40K should be treated more like a roleplay really, that's why the fluff aspect is the most important one for many players.
I'm just saying if Tau are your first love stick to them, you won't have more fun with an army that you just choose for the rules that are about to change in half a year anyway.

 Sledgehammer wrote:

dominuschao wrote:
OP- My advice would be to keep playing, to learn every army and to play several or at least as many as you can. The last will allow you to ride out bad editions for a particular army, in my case dark eldar. Honestly pretty much all your assertions are not correct, or at least pretty over stated. The game is far to nuanced to have any of those issues be a consistent deciding factor. Psykers in particular have a huge down side now to the point of exclusion. Skill is by far the most influential factor in this game and that includes list building to greater and lesser degrees.

Anyway as a player that's been playing since 3rd and owned well over 20 armies I can tell you this is a good edition. Maybe not my favorite but definitely worth continuing.

so in other words..... buy all the codexes, buy a lot of armies and read and study the game as much as possible, then pick the units and factions that work so that you have a chance of having a good time. That is not worth neither the time nor the investment. What that is, is a fundamental problem.

However you wanna interpret it man.
The game isn't that far off but sometimes there are a few stinkers. Is what it is.
The fact is the game isn't balanced each edition it's balanced across the spectrum of editions. Sometimes an army is good sometimes it's not. You wanna have a decent experience each edition? Own more than 1 army.
Personally I don't buy most books I buy a few and I "borrow" the rest online.. but then that's another topic.

OP: GW had a perfectly good system in Space Marine - the 2nd edition of the Epic series. It had workable ‘orders’ , simplified shooting, scalable between infantry & Titan combat, integrated flyers and a morale system that was relevant. It works today in 40k scale, with the addition of an ‘infantry saves vs infantry weapons’ rule and converting vehicle units to ‘hit points’ for a single model.

Of course, there is no chance of the company resurrecting it - but it’s nice to see they can get it right sometimes :-)

dominuschao wrote:
...You wanna have a decent experience each edition? Own more than 1 army...

Qualifier on the "more than one": I have six armies right now. One of them is playable without needing to buy entirely new minis.

I disagree with the people saying don't play Tau.

If you enjoy their look, and enjoy building and painting them, play whatever.

Just play with your mates and ask them to bring silly fluffy lists and have some fun.

Its better to buy, model, paint and play with an army you love then chase whats 'good'.

As someone who has played this game since the 80s....

I think the obvious solution for GW would be to make different games that cater to different things.

Make more competitive games with
- smaller model counts on smaller boards / play time that are e-sport/twitch/streaming-friendly,
- where 10 or 15 or more rounds can be played in a day, best of 3-games formats are possible,
- perhaps no variable options to make multiple factions easy to balance without the exponential escalation of rules-interaction of many options across many factions,
- maybe use a MtG-style card deck, both being more familiar to the competitive crowd,
- where you can rotate through official seasons to keep things interesting
- where models move and ranged are measured on hexes or squares to avoid ambiguities of tape measures, etc..
- etc

And a more casual / hobbyist-oriented game,
- where people can throw down giant Knight warmachine or perhaps 100 or even 200+ models for Ork / Tyranid hordes or fluff-models with super-silly rules like Primarchs you probably cannot reasonably balance for a balanced game
- where games can take upwards of 2 or even 3 hours, as competitive game is less of an issue
- where emulating the fluff and giving players the ability to customize their toy soldiers takes precedence over balance
- where you play the game on model-terrain you make yourself for a more immersive look, eschewing things like hexes, etc.. for the sake of aesthetics / hobby-creativity of the battlefield
- etc..


Bang. Best of both worlds for whatever type of game any given player prefers (and some might possibly play both).

I am not surprised new players may be dissatisified with the game, as GW's propaganda of success is not clear about what WH40K is about.

New editions are advertised as "deeply tactical", the sheer amount of rules gives an ilussion of something deep and complex, so when it turns out WH40K is more like playing with a doll house (albeit with chainswords and explosive rounds rather than cups and combs) than playing a strategy game, disappointment is understandable.

Cyel wrote:
New editions are advertised as "deeply tactical", the sheer amount of rules gives an ilussion of something deep and complex

I don't think the complexity is an illusion - combinations of units, auras, traits, relics, and stratagems with some factions having 50+ units is complex.

But combined with a great many rolls, rerolls, additional rolls, layered rolls, added effects on rolls, modifiers, and additional circumstantial variants of all of the above makes it more difficult for players to approach the game with a good sense of cause and effect, which is also not helped by increased speed and lethality requiring players to account for yet more variables and outcomes.