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Do those here who play 40k TT feel like each army actually has enough 'character' outside of the beautiful models? Or do the army rules really just feel like copy paste among the factions with a few +1's here and there?

I've been thinking about this for a long time, and it just seems that games like Necromunda are way more characterful, with different interactions, knockbacks, clever use of terrain (i.e. crawling through vents) and rules (falling damage, grapnel hooks, etc.), that really help define your models through gameplay/rules.

I haven't really played 40k TT since ~3rd/4th edition, and I don't recall feeling like this was the case when I was that young and new to the hobby, but after all these years and considering getting back into the hobby, I can't help but look at all the army rules and feel like we might as well all be fighting with different sizes of generic pink cubes or something, instead of Necron warriors, Space Marines, or Tyranid hormagaunts.

Obviously rules that are simpler and more streamlined make for faster games, and it seems the latest edition has done that well. But even Crusade, on the surface, doesn't seem to add the interesting level of rules I was hoping to find, just based on Warhammer Community articles over time. At this point, if it is truly necessary, I would like a ruleset that puts 40k into more of a 4-5 hr game so we could have more characterful rules. Or perhaps something that just adds detailed rules pertaining to our warlords/hero units (a thought I've also been nursing for some time).

But I haven't really been playing 40k for a long time, save for maybe 10 or so matches in 8th edition. So what do you all who are actually a part of the scene think? How does it feel from the inside? Is playing dark eldar *really* a fundamentally different *experience* from playing Space Marines, etc. - or are all 40k armies virtually cut and paste?

It's a different scale and focus so it's not going to be like Necromunda. Necromunda focuses on a skirmish size group that you are encouraged to create a story for.
40k armies are very different in playstyle and units which is where it matters. A Druhkari army is supposed to be fast hard-hitting units that can't really stand up to a fair fight versus SM who are designed to be the jack of all trades, master of none.
The problem with basing opinions solely on WarCom articles is that the articles only give you a glance into the rules so that you buy them. I have both SM and Druhkari 9th codexes and the Crusade features in both are pretty good, although Druhkari takes the top prize.

While I agree that to some extent that there is some blandness to making your own characters, especially in terms of weapons options, I'd say that it's not really fair to say it's less characterful when it comes to the actual army rules and how they play. I feel like it looks like this on the surface partly because of the "no model, no rules" policy GW follows which inherently results in very awkward weapon loadouts or datasheets, especially for new plastic HQ characters. They've also slowly been addressing some of the monotony of characters with the command structure upgrades that have been coming out in 9th ed books, shown especially well with the DE HQ upgrades and being able to have Reclusiarchs, Chief Librarian and Chief apothecary upgrades that are distinct/meaningful.

Furthermore, given the scale of the game being a mid-scale wargame and less of a skirmish style game of 5-10 models where you can have the detail required to demonstrate the intracies of combat, I really don't think we need any more rules bloat, which is precisely why we even got a complete rewrite starting with 8th ed. anyways. I would also argue that you can really tell the difference in playstyle and composition when you try playing armies beyond just different colours of SM, which seems to be case for yourself.

Playing DE is very different from SM at the moment, and honestly I think it demonstrates your lack of personal experience if you think playing something Tau is anywhere close to playing with an army like Orks or Death Guard.

It really seems like you want a version of hero-hammer or units that are super customizable. The closest to that would be Deathwatch to some extent atm, but also I would say that you're probably better off playing Kill Team or staying with Necromunda if you want that kind of level feel or detail. Hell, playing a 40k RPG will get you your fix more since it doesn't seem like you're looking for a mid-large scale wargame tbh, especially if you want a 4-5 hour game runtime, which can be very exhausting for you and your opponent.

 Gert wrote:
It's a different scale and focus so it's not going to be like Necromunda. Necromunda focuses on a skirmish size group that you are encouraged to create a story for.
40k armies are very different in playstyle and units which is where it matters. A Druhkari army is supposed to be fast hard-hitting units that can't really stand up to a fair fight versus SM who are designed to be the jack of all trades, master of none.
The problem with basing opinions solely on WarCom articles is that the articles only give you a glance into the rules so that you buy them. I have both SM and Druhkari 9th codexes and the Crusade features in both are pretty good, although Druhkari takes the top prize.

Your point on Necromunda definitely makes sense, but I was mostly pointing out the mechanisms it uses such that one gang can be using those tactics and rules such as grapnel hooks, while another squad doesn't. One can scale super tall structures, and another just can't. Another example would be how one gang might be exceptionally good at working door mechanisms and can keep them closed while the gang on the other end is dumb as heck about them and cannot open them, etc. Superbly characterful distinguishing factors.

Similarly, I totally agree on the point of the warcom articles. That's why after enough of them, I felt the need to make this thread, because for me learning about the current state of all this before diving head first/investing into 40k TT is important.

So with drukhari vs Space Marines it's clear that one takes more damage but is faster. That's +1 to a few things and -1 to a few other things. That ties in exceptionally well with the models you're staring at on the table, but does it feel distinguished mechanically?

A better example might be necron warriors vs space marines these days. If you are pitting squad of those vs each other, does a necron warrior squad feel like you're unliving mechanical nightmares, or is it that you might as well swap their names on their datasheets and it feels exactly the same? What about a necron lord vs a space marine captain, etc.?

It's kind of a potentially depressing question but...that's why I feel the need to ask before investing in it all again lol. I basically just want to know if you just swapped names between two armies' datasheets for similar roles (troops, fast attack, heavy, HQ etc.), would you really *lose* anything to that army's feel or experience, or was there never anything truly unique - mechanically/datasheet-wise - to distinguish them in the first place?

Armies feel different to play and there are rules that reflect that. But I think if you're looking for roughly the same level of depth from 40k as you get in Necromunda, I think you're going to be sorely disappointed.

 Grimskul wrote:
While I agree that to some extent that there is some blandness to making your own characters, especially in terms of weapons options, I'd say that it's not really fair to say it's less characterful when it comes to the actual army rules and how they play. I feel like it looks like this on the surface partly because of the "no model, no rules" policy GW follows which inherently results in very awkward weapon loadouts or datasheets, especially for new plastic HQ characters. They've also slowly been addressing some of the monotony of characters with the command structure upgrades that have been coming out in 9th ed books, shown especially well with the DE HQ upgrades and being able to have Reclusiarchs, Chief Librarian and Chief apothecary upgrades that are distinct/meaningful.

Furthermore, given the scale of the game being a mid-scale wargame and less of a skirmish style game of 5-10 models where you can have the detail required to demonstrate the intracies of combat, I really don't think we need any more rules bloat, which is precisely why we even got a complete rewrite starting with 8th ed. anyways. I would also argue that you can really tell the difference in playstyle and composition when you try playing armies beyond just different colours of SM, which seems to be case for yourself.

Playing DE is very different from SM at the moment, and honestly I think it demonstrates your lack of personal experience if you think playing something Tau is anywhere close to playing with an army like Orks or Death Guard.

It really seems like you want a version of hero-hammer or units that are super customizable. The closest to that would be Deathwatch to some extent atm, but also I would say that you're probably better off playing Kill Team or staying with Necromunda if you want that kind of level feel or detail. Hell, playing a 40k RPG will get you your fix more since it doesn't seem like you're looking for a mid-large scale wargame tbh, especially if you want a 4-5 hour game runtime, which can be very exhausting for you and your opponent.

That is of course an easy answer for the 'fix' I'm looking for, you're right [playing Necromunda etc. instead of 40k], however I do absolutely love the codexes, the lore, the models, and most especially the people I know who want to play it. But I've been dragging my feet about it because of this question, so, I thought I'd try to get to the bottom of this nagging question of mine. The point is - I think it would be *enough* for me so long as players do feel that the rules for their army are actually characterful and, namely, interesting.

I suppose things like the loss of templates and vehicle armor/sides has hurt the matter a bit, scatter dice and things like that as well. Grots flying and dying everywhere as they rocket towards you. Sure. But does a squad of stormboys feel any different at all compared to a squad of assault marines? Do special rules really exist that make things *feel* like your squads vs other armies' squads of similar profiles really are still uniquely and interestingly distinct enough? Are what we players have available in our codexes actually enough to achieve that feel, regardless of how it might appear to an outsider?

Well between army special rules (doctrines, Command protocols) , subfaction specific rules (dynasties, chapters), faction rules (disgustingly resilient, reanimation protocols) there's enough difference between the factions already, and that doesn't even mention differences in datasheets, relics, Warlord traits, psychic powers, equipment and so on. For differences between the factions 40K has returned to a very interesting state. From 4th to 7th Edition it didn't matter which Chaos Legion you took, they were all the exact same. Now they all play a little different and DG and TS even got sub-subfaction. Some people call that bloat but whenever I see alternative rulesets for 40K I think it's the one thing that is a strong selling point for 40K: every little snowflake faction and every little plastic blob on your miniatures has its own rules.

Big Problem though? Everything can die very fast in a barrage of 40Ks firepower, no matter how many nitty gritty special rules you throw on it

 Netsurfer733 wrote:
Do those here who play 40k TT feel like each army actually has enough 'character' outside of the beautiful models? Or do the army rules really just feel like copy paste among the factions with a few +1's here and there?

That's been literally half the armies in the game for its entire lifespan with the various flavors of Space Marines to be fair.

In general however, 40k just isn't a terribly deep tactical exercise, and as product lines have grown and tactical niches been filled, things only available to certain factions have become much more commonplace. The game's scale tries to encompass everything from Titans to Grots as being individually relevant models, the level of abstraction requiring that a Volcano cannon and that Grot's revolver both being things that need equal record keeping and rolling events, resulting in these things having the be very similar on the table.

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
While I agree that to some extent that there is some blandness to making your own characters, especially in terms of weapons options, I'd say that it's not really fair to say it's less characterful when it comes to the actual army rules and how they play. I feel like it looks like this on the surface partly because of the "no model, no rules" policy GW follows which inherently results in very awkward weapon loadouts or datasheets, especially for new plastic HQ characters. They've also slowly been addressing some of the monotony of characters with the command structure upgrades that have been coming out in 9th ed books, shown especially well with the DE HQ upgrades and being able to have Reclusiarchs, Chief Librarian and Chief apothecary upgrades that are distinct/meaningful.

Furthermore, given the scale of the game being a mid-scale wargame and less of a skirmish style game of 5-10 models where you can have the detail required to demonstrate the intracies of combat, I really don't think we need any more rules bloat, which is precisely why we even got a complete rewrite starting with 8th ed. anyways. I would also argue that you can really tell the difference in playstyle and composition when you try playing armies beyond just different colours of SM, which seems to be case for yourself.

Playing DE is very different from SM at the moment, and honestly I think it demonstrates your lack of personal experience if you think playing something Tau is anywhere close to playing with an army like Orks or Death Guard.

It really seems like you want a version of hero-hammer or units that are super customizable. The closest to that would be Deathwatch to some extent atm, but also I would say that you're probably better off playing Kill Team or staying with Necromunda if you want that kind of level feel or detail. Hell, playing a 40k RPG will get you your fix more since it doesn't seem like you're looking for a mid-large scale wargame tbh, especially if you want a 4-5 hour game runtime, which can be very exhausting for you and your opponent.

That is of course an easy answer for the 'fix' I'm looking for, you're right [playing Necromunda etc. instead of 40k], however I do absolutely love the codexes, the lore, the models, and most especially the people I know who want to play it. But I've been dragging my feet about it because of this question, so, I thought I'd try to get to the bottom of this nagging question of mine. The point is - I think it would be *enough* for me so long as players do feel that the rules for their army are actually characterful and, namely, interesting.

I suppose things like the loss of templates and vehicle armor/sides has hurt the matter a bit, scatter dice and things like that as well. Grots flying and dying everywhere as they rocket towards you. Sure. But does a squad of stormboys feel any different at all compared to a squad of assault marines? Do special rules really exist that make things *feel* like your squads vs other armies' squads of similar profiles really are still uniquely and interestingly distinct enough? Are what we players have available in our codexes actually enough to achieve that feel, regardless of how it might appear to an outsider?

Oh yeah, trust me, stormboyz are quite different from assault marines. For one thing, neither are taken competitively in large numbers, for Stormboyz, they're usually a squad of five you deepstrike to do secondary objectives before they get shot off the board. Assault Marines are effectively not used at all since you have the much superior vanguard veterans who can be equipped to be both mobile, have good defensive stats and good offensive output. As far as assault marines go, they're far more resilient with the 2W base, their armour save and the plethora of chapter tactics/strats/SM doctrines that either increase their defensive capabilities or damage output. Stormboyz are only ever taken en masse in green tide lists, and with their current ppm at 12, they aren't very cost efficient compared to just taking more boyz.

Also, based on what you told me, the best way to demonstrate whether or not 40k in its current incarnation can scratch your itch is for you to either play some of it yourself or to watch some games if you already haven't. If you have tabletop simulator on steam, it's a fantastic way to get your feet wet with the new rules without overinvesting in models and books, use wahapedia as a gap filler for the rules you need (it literally has everything so far in the game AFAIK right now), and you're good to go. Let me know if you need help setting up a game in TTS since you do need to subscribe to mods in the steam workshop to gain access to the 40k models/gaming tables.

As far as watching battle reports, I would say Tabletop Titans are one of the best channels to start with.

If you look at 40k on a model-by-model basis, not much seems all that different.

Most troop units are anywhere between t3 and t4, with a few at t5. Most vehicles are between t7 and t8. Most armies have a save that averages around 4+ or 5+, with all space marines being 3+.

It's how the army comes together as a whole that you really start to see the character of it. How the Admech handle screen units versus how the Tyranids handle screen units. How Space Marines hold objectives versus how Guardsmen hold objectives. While many stratagems are broken down into '+1 to this or -1 to that', it's how they combo with other abilities or how they help you achieve the aforementioned goals that gives them a bit of flavor.

So, no, I don't think that 40k lacks any character in their armies.

My issue is that there are too many Space Marines and THAT strips the game of flavor.

Good points on a number of things by you guys; I suppose I hadn't taken it into consideration that more factions and models have more rules than ever now, and are at least in *that* way distinct. I do truly appreciate that. Even if, as someone mentioned above, I shouldn't expect much depth. Indeed tracking a grot pistol and a volcano canon to the same extent within the same game does require some powerful bending to represent...

And perhaps that's something I didn't consider. Hearing you describe the differences between stormboyz and assault marines kind of surprised me with the detail you were able to give, part of that being a sort of meta-layer. But there is something to be said there, about how much character comes out when one unit *bounces off* another one. How they fit into an army, etc... Yeah. I suppose playing the game more probably would make this sort of thing more clear. I think you're right that maybe I should get more exposed to it, though I'm not sure I'll spend *much* time in Twitch etc. I think being hands-on is probably best. Maybe...maybe I'll try tabletop simulator but I think I just needed to be encouraged to get into the real thing. I'd rather just try that. Which I think I might now.

One burning question i have in regards to all this though is the Crusade mode, which has been the most exciting thing to me because I thought it might add lots of interesting character and detail to an army. But no one here has brought that up; has anyone given Crusade a shot? How does it add to all this?

The only dexes I have so far are marine + Death Watch, and Drukhari. They are awesome and nothing alike.

The Crusade section of the Drukhari dex introduces rules for Ascendant Lords, which battle to seize territories from other Lords. It is like having a built in Necromunda style mini-game built right into the dex. And only Drukhari get it.

They just previewed the Admech Crusade rules; they get to collect Archeotech, which they can assemble to create new equipment. Like lego. And they're the only ones getting that.

The story I got from Crusade rules for Deathwatch was cool; my core is old marines, and when the new dex dropped, they created different flavours of primaris Kill Teams. So I knew one of these teams was going to join, and I started thinking about how old marines, having internalized the betrayal during the Heresy, would likely be suspicious of this new mark of marine. So I burned an RP to make the Primaris Kill Team Indomitus vets, so they come in Blooded, while the old Marines are green. Once they hit Battlehardened, I'll burn another RP to give their Sergeant access to special ammo to represent the acceptance of their battle brothers. No starting specialism- they're going to earn those in battle, that way I can choose the unit type that they actually defeat as the target of their specialism.

Moving away from Crusade though, it is true the many of the perks that come with a faction/subfaction identity are similar- +1's, rerolls, etc. But there are some strats in every dex that are unique; marines super bolter prowess differentiates them from other armies, Death Guard cause diseases...

I think another factor is that if you want to really explore the identity of an army, you need to abandon your desire to build the winningest list. If you're only willing to to use the best 10% of your dex so you can win MOAR, you're never going to be exposed to the potential character that other units could bring to your army.

What if the 90% of the book isn't really worth taking? For example taking GK strikes over purfires or interceptors just makes no sense at all.

Same with most vehicles being of the rather bad kind. MM dreads are good though, although they lack all the resilient buffs marine buffs got in their codex.

 Netsurfer733 wrote:
One burning question i have in regards to all this though is the Crusade mode, which has been the most exciting thing to me because I thought it might add lots of interesting character and detail to an army. But no one here has brought that up; has anyone given Crusade a shot? How does it add to all this?

Crusade's great, and if you're not planning on playing tournaments then you can play it exclusively. It seems like that's what you'd be interested in.

With regards to your concern about differentiating play-styles, Crusade's secondary objectives (agendas) provide experience points for units rather than victory points toward the main mission. Obviously you want to provide experience to your most effective models, to leverage your advantage, so you'll choose agendas they can score. If my army has a few powerful heroes, I'll prefer agendas like Survivor. If my army is extremely mobile, I'll prefer Breakthrough to put experience on my fastest units. Or even if your army is mobile, those units wouldn't make good use of Breakthrough's experience and you plan for something else. Your faction informs your army choices, which inform your agenda choices, which inform your gameplay. Two armies that play very differently often then have extremely asymmetric goals in a game.

In terms of character progression, the base book progression is fairly generic but factions with 9th ed codex have a lot more detail. Standard troopers don't have many upgrades to pick from and won't ever be the star of the show. However, characters can really expand on their abilities and get some new tricks to differentiate themselves.

On the whole, I think 40k armies play extremely differently and there's lots of ways that armies set themselves apart. If you're focused on how each individual unit is different than similar units, then you'll miss the forest for the trees. The game works when all the units are played in their context, with the rest of their army and faction rules. Every army has a few gimmicks that set it apart.

Oh, wow, no. I feel the opposite - there's far too much in the way of trash rules and junk to make things feel distinct even though they aren't and have no reason to be. It honestly weighs the game down (and bogs down play).

I'd absolutely gut at least half the rules text from each codex, and move back to basics and player decisions rather than rules spam.

By far my biggest gripes about army flavor stem from mostly things:

1: Space Marines keep getting stuff that was originally a point of character of other factions.

2: "Every army needs to have a ____" thinking/the blanderization of Necrons. "Look, they now have light vehicles and bikes like other factions, etc."

3: The reduction in unit customization in various key areas, but mainly Eldar Characters and Chaos in general.

Voss wrote:
Oh, wow, no. I feel the opposite - there's far too much in the way of trash rules and junk to make things feel distant even though they aren't and have no reason to be. It honestly weighs the game down (and bogs down play).

I'd absolutely gut at least half the rules text from each codex, and move back to basics and player decisions rather than rules spam.

^I also agree with this. Special rules have been used to make things "special", rather than relying on core stats. When the Broadside Railgun was S10 AP1 in 3rd-4th, there's no need for a special rule or ability or stratagem.

Voss wrote:
Oh, wow, no. I feel the opposite - there's far too much in the way of trash rules and junk to make things feel distant even though they aren't and have no reason to be. It honestly weighs the game down (and bogs down play).

I'd absolutely gut at least half the rules text from each codex, and move back to basics and player decisions rather than rules spam.

Damn right. And it doesn't just screw with the gameplay, it screws with the sort of creativity that makes the game itself attractive.

I ran into this problem when trying to decide on what Marine chapter rules to use for an unusual force(As Marines and their supplements are the worst offenders here); These rules may be characterful... if you're playing a precisely canon faction or a group exactly like one of them. For someone like me who does not wish to play anything but Your Dudes, you have to jump through a ton of flaming hoops to justify the existence of all these increasingly bizarre special rules on Your Dudes, and you can only jump through so many flaming hoops before you burn your groin off and decide this is not worth your time.

For the most part yes, look at Daemons each gods models are all very different, not just in looks but also playstyle. DE is vastly different than CWE, Marines compare to IG, Orks oh wow Orks has so much character lol, Sisters even though some think them as "light marines" they really are not (I have both armies and I can tell you SoB are more like Eldar + Guard than Marines lol).

So yeah, armies has character.

However there is 1 army, I think the biggest problem is Marines just has everything, marines are kind of the problem not the other armies.

I had thought recently with battle reports that they mostly looked like two bright colour army’s that spend so much of the game facilitating dice throws for a hour.

The game play is so bland and uses special rules and hype dice to generate its excitement it feels like and little really thought or design has gone into the actual way the factions themselves play.
Mostly flatten out to make people feel they can take anything, when they cannot, and to allow factions that are forced to skew towards poor balanced list design be able to function.
It’s a bit of a joke.
It doesn’t help that marines are slowly becoming everything and all tactics and need more specific rules to make each version distinct despite them being written as a tactical variant faction that can shift well to meat battlefield conditions.

Literally every unit, army, and sub army has its own special rules. If anything there are far too many of them.

The real problem in my opinion is that the special rules themselves are far too impactful on both the way your units play, and the result of the game itself. The special rules essentially become how the game is played, and 40k just doesn't feel dynamic because of it.

Positional modifiers and a command and control aspect would help to give every army some more tactical options, because right now, your special rules dictate that for you.

I agree with Voss, Insectum and Kasen. No need to retype.

Necrons are pretty different from SM, most SM characters cannot come back to life and they have T4 instead of T5. Necron characters have single-target buffs for the most part, their auras are not very impactful. Space Marines have a mix of auras and single-target buffs. Auras mean you benefit more from blobbing up which changes how the army is played.

Necrons can effectively move with their Reanimation Protocols, but without those and and a Noble nearby they are slow, assault weapons changes things on this front.

There are a lot of flavour outliers in every faction which makes sense from a military standpoint but hampers the flavour, especially if the least flavourful choice is the most powerful choice. Necrons are known for being tough, but Ophydian Destroyers are glass cannons. If Ophyidan Destroyers cost 25 points instead of 35 and everybody started taking 18 of them then the flavour of Necrons would no longer be durable robots, but glass cannon robots.

I don't think you should start if there is no group near you that can give you an intro game, maybe try out Tabletop Simulator. The game's balance is hell right now, but I'm guessing Necromunda is very casual so you will probably enjoy casual 40k. Another thing to consider is if you have money and time to invest into building and painting a whole 40k army.

Do those here who play 40k TT feel like each army actually has enough 'character' outside of the beautiful models? Or do the army rules really just feel like copy paste among the factions with a few +1's here and there?

That is kind of the running joke about primaris marines specifically at our shop.

they are just blue ultramarines, or red ultramarines or yellow ultramaraines etc... because the strats they get to make them "different" are a far cry from the old iconic built in rules they used to have that made the chapters all feel and behave differently. there is only so much variance you can put into a d6 system like you said with the +/- 1 etc...

Practically? The armies do all feel very different right now, both to field and to face. The rules are doing a pretty decent job of character for the armies. If you’re looking for Necromunda granularity well that’s not the design space they’ve chosen for a larger wargame with more models. The streamlining works and I’m having the most fun with 9th that I’ve had since 2nd.

Find some nice people and play some games and give it a go.

this has been always the case up to a point

and it is not because a D6 system is limited, specially as 40k used tables to recreate the possibilities of a D20

problem was mainly that the options were never used (with "to hit" limited to 3+ and 4+, having WS going from 2-10 was pointless) and during an Edition most factions were ignoring most core rules until the end


overall it is not only about flavour but about playstyle
if the playstyle that works best is the same for all factions, all other options that give "flavour" are just "decoration"
(hence why there is no point in having a Codex for each Marine chapter)

looking at Bolt Action or Flames of War were the armies are much more the same stat wise and D6 are used, but the playstyle of each faction is very different

Most feel different, but insofar as there is a issue with sameness, it is caused by having to accomodate marine subfactions with a full suite of rules covering every conceivable specialisation, which detract from factions defined and limited by those traits.

I actually feel a lot of stuff is too different.
I don't like sub-faction rules which give out minor abilities which are quite often largely abitrary.
I feel these abilities pigeon hole factions into certain roles and unit choices, if that doesn't match your vision of the faction then tough luck.

I think this contributes to the wider sense that 40k is a game largely decided in the list building step.
Once on the table you just throw strategems at each other and determine who has the most DPS. Compared to other games actual tabletop tactics feel both less significant and less complex.

 Insectum7 wrote:
By far my biggest gripes about army flavor stem from mostly things:

1: Space Marines keep getting stuff that was originally a point of character of other factions.

2: "Every army needs to have a ____" thinking/the blanderization of Necrons. "Look, they now have light vehicles and bikes like other factions, etc."

3: The reduction in unit customization in various key areas, but mainly Eldar Characters and Chaos in general.
.

Every army getting most of stuff is much better then hearing from GW that this edition every army should run 40 models of chaff, when your army doesn't have access to it in the rules, but it does have access to it in the lore.

Yeah some of the things you guys are saying about Crusade really is making me want to give that a try. Maybe even if it's not quite adding depth in the way I'd want directly, maybe it's still scratching that itch in a fantastic way. That alone I think has me kind of convinced to go back to 40k TT. That, plus I am seeing a number of folks who are indeed saying there's no hope are also not mentioning anything about Crusade, so, not seeing anything negative about it from those experienced. Big +1. And yes it should ofc be stated that even though my group and I might play some tournaments in the future, at this point I doubt it will be come our main squeeze. So, pure casual here for the storytelling/immersion etc.

 DarkHound wrote:

In terms of character progression, the base book progression is fairly generic but factions with 9th ed codex have a lot more detail. Standard troopers don't have many upgrades to pick from and won't ever be the star of the show. However, characters can really expand on their abilities and get some new tricks to differentiate themselves.

On the whole, I think 40k armies play extremely differently and there's lots of ways that armies set themselves apart. If you're focused on how each individual unit is different than similar units, then you'll miss the forest for the trees. The game works when all the units are played in their context, with the rest of their army and faction rules. Every army has a few gimmicks that set it apart.

I think those are some great points. The character, as it were, is really more in the meta-sense of an army, and not within the per-model to model comparisons of troops to troops etc. for similar units. But also I haven't really looked too closely at how 9e handles hero characters either...I would indeed like to do that. Which also reminds me of the recent chapter approved which let you customize the living heck out of your hero units. I really wouldn't mind a 'Davian Thule' type astartes commander with a heavy bolter...

Voss wrote:
Oh, wow, no. I feel the opposite - there's far too much in the way of trash rules and junk to make things feel distinct even though they aren't and have no reason to be. It honestly weighs the game down (and bogs down play).

I'd absolutely gut at least half the rules text from each codex, and move back to basics and player decisions rather than rules spam.

It seems that a # of folks echoed this comment. But while I do get the argument against same-ness, it does seem simply better to have a black templars supplement or w/e that has everything vanilla marines have, and then a +1 to leadership after charging or something nice for them. I don't see that as being a bad thing like other folks seem to - but I'm not sure I'm seeing the benefit to the alternative? IF, you are suggesting that those insane amounts of codecies and rules get eliminated in *favor* of having more detailed rules with more skirmish-game-leaning depth somehow, then I'm all for it. But that would still straight up expand the amount of time a game takes, so... I'm not sure if that's what any of you were thinking there.

Apple fox wrote:
I had thought recently with battle reports that they mostly looked like two bright colour army’s that spend so much of the game facilitating dice throws for a hour.

The game play is so bland and uses special rules and hype dice to generate its excitement it feels like and little really thought or design has gone into the actual way the factions themselves play.
Mostly flatten out to make people feel they can take anything, when they cannot, and to allow factions that are forced to skew towards poor balanced list design be able to function.
It’s a bit of a joke.
It doesn’t help that marines are slowly becoming everything and all tactics and need more specific rules to make each version distinct despite them being written as a tactical variant faction that can shift well to meat battlefield conditions.

This is probably the best echo of my concern so far in this thread, yeah. It's the one thing that's been making me shy away from 40k TT but given 9e Crusade rules, I think there might be some untapped fun there for those of us who have feared this sort of thing. Or at least has been my increasing hope.

And yeah I definitely started out in the tournament scene during 3rd or 4th. Did pretty good for a young teen, but while I do definitely enjoy the tournament scene, I could genuinely give less of a heck now about winning or losing. As long as the experience along the way in a game is a good one, as long as I'm immersed and getting something genuinely good out of it as are those fighting with me or alongside me, I'm 100% all about that. How the game goes at its core overlaps between tournament players and everyone else though, although that's perhaps not so true for Crusade play. In any case that's just me, plenty of other valid opinions that I respect here. It's all about how you play!

I've played Crusade and I'm really not a fan.

It's a lot of Book keeping between games, and because I play Blood Angels all the rules are spread across at least three books (core rules, space marines codex, blood angels supplement).

All the crusade rules really do is take the mechanic that I already dislike abut 40k; loads kf special snowflake rules, and turns it up to 11.
This unit gets +1 damage, this unit gets +1 move, this unit has a relic sword that's functionally just a thunderhammer, etc etc.