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This is not a suggestion I am happy to submit, but it is one i feel is necessary given the design direction of the game mechanics.

The increasing lethality of codexes and smaller board size seems to result in a rather skewed game timeline. Rather than a slow ramping up of intensity, the game instead begins with a bang and then fizzles out into a whimper. It seems to me that one does not see a lot of late game come-backs or sudden swings...instead turns 4-5 are a rather slow moving and tedious game of retrospective wound accounting, where the side with the advantage continues to accrue points as they chase the other opponent to table them after defanging their strongest units.

If designers want faster games: condense the turns and end the power creep of model stats. The D6 system is already stretched to its game theory limits. The only solution for the bad feels of getting demolished during your opponents first turn would be the relief that a rematch is soon possible, not to drag out another hour of an essentially doomed fate. Allow players to get a "best of three" series of games to hopefully average out the fickleness of a dice game that skews strategy and tactics.

I think three turns would more accurately represent the current metagame flow, with the deep striking of units becoming the tactical choice of risking a last turn gambit to grab objectives or seize victory, or a second turn "rolling wave" of reinforcements to buttress what inevitably gets obliterated as soon as it is deployed.

Again this is ultimately not where I would like to 40k to be as a strategy game. But I don't make the rules - these are merely ideas offered after observation and analysis of how the game is being played with the Rules As Written.

I've had far too many games won or lost in turns 4 and 5 to think this is a good idea.

Turns 1-2 tend to be the most destruction since they are the 1st blitz of firepower and turn 2 is usually the first wave of major CC attacks and deepstrikes.

But i've had my armies swing wildly in later rounds to completely reverse the course of a game I thought was either won or lost.

The end turns where you have less stuff on the board and therefore less ability to just auto-delete whatever you want to delete are much more interesting tactically. They actually represent the lower lethality, bigger game board you seem to be wanting - less models on the board makes it effectively bigger, and makes it tougher to kill the enemy - so I don't know why you would want to do away with those turns if your complaints are lethality and board size.

The problem with 40k right now is with how lethal the phase of the game that typically lasts from the bottom of T1 to the top of T3 is, not the bits after that.

Umm no.

T4-5 seem to be when the interesting stuff happens.

3 easy things that can mitigate some of the issues are;
#1) play on a larger table
#2) utilize a good variety of LOS blocking terrain with appropriate keywords
#3) play smaller pts values on larger tables

As always, lethality is only a problem because of the lack of alternative activation.

Disagree with the suggestion.

If your games are regularely over by turn three, methinks both players aren't evenly matched.

Not a fan of this suggestion. That said, I wouldn't mind we toned down the lethality just a bit. Do we really need doctirnes making primaris boltguns AP-2 for half the game (and normal bolters AP-1)? Was going from Assault 3 to Assault 4 crucial to my swooping hawks' identity?

Generally you can't do much about the difference of skill or codex power. Unless you force both people to play mirrors, and the worse player learns fast, while the better player doesn't.

I haven't seen or had many games that ended on turn 3, not in the way some games could end turn 1-2 in 8th. I had a few games end on turn 2,in a practical sense in that I and my opponent knew what was going to happen over the next two turns. But in general turn 3 end games don't happen that often. If there is big difference between armies, or the skills of players then the games will end before turn 3, and if it is more balanced games generaly tend to run the full 5 turns.

I do not share the same experience.

I've played games against DA where barely anything dies from either side until late game. Many games start off very cagey. And limited units and late game movements are just as interesting if not more so.

I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

That's hardly the GW way of solving problems though...

Is there no way we can 'solve' this problem with an extra supplement?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

You mean like maybe not reading the words "The table shows the minimum size of battlefields" (emphasis mine) as "This is the ONLY size and the BEST size of battlefield, and you should NEVER, EVER, play on anything bigger"?

Yet that is how people play it. It is like saying that if someone doesn't like matched play, they should play something else.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

You mean like maybe not reading the words "The table shows the minimum size of battlefields" (emphasis mine) as "This is the ONLY size and the BEST size of battlefield, and you should NEVER, EVER, play on anything bigger"?

The size of the table is almost irrelevant; the king-of-the-hill scenarios are written to force you to deploy as far forward as possible and move forward, so someone's going to bring whatever 2d6+22" charge-threat jetbike unit and get their automatic first-turn charges, or you lose on scenario. You could play something other than the matched play scenarios, but everyone I know who still plays 9th has gotten so into the most-balanced-edition-ever cult they get super-offended if you suggest playing anything other than a tournament game and refuse to play (the non-tournament players have all quit).

Imho 1500 points with the current 60x44" tables would work better than 2000 points.
Games felt cramped at launch, even more so now that points are decreasing across the board and lethality goes up.

Maybe also shrink the deployment zones by an inch or two.

Yeah, I'd fight Strikeforce battles on an Onslaught Board (90 X 44).

I don't use GW boards- I use 15 x 15 inch tiles, so my 44" side is always one inch over the minimum, but my 30, 60, 90 sides come out fine. The added bonus is that I can play Incursion on a 45 X 45, which means that Incursion and Combat Patrol aren't stuck feeling samey.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

You mean like maybe not reading the words "The table shows the minimum size of battlefields" (emphasis mine) as "This is the ONLY size and the BEST size of battlefield, and you should NEVER, EVER, play on anything bigger"?

The size of the table is almost irrelevant; the king-of-the-hill scenarios are written to force you to deploy as far forward as possible and move forward, so someone's going to bring whatever 2d6+22" charge-threat jetbike unit and get their automatic first-turn charges, or you lose on scenario. You could play something other than the matched play scenarios, but everyone I know who still plays 9th has gotten so into the most-balanced-edition-ever cult they get super-offended if you suggest playing anything other than a tournament game and refuse to play (the non-tournament players have all quit).

Out of 30 or so games I have yet to be charged in the first turn.

And?

As someone who plays Slaanesh Daemons, I have never not charged on the first turn.*

*Or rather, I could have charged on the first turn, but didn't for a variety of reasons. The fact I didn't doesn't mean I couldn't have though. My Keeper in Crusade has a 39" threat range (or possibly 41", actually, though I don't have the relevant upgrade)

Let me put it another way - of all the batreps you've watched how many times did you see a cross table charge?

Point being this is a strategy of 8th that people generally don't build into unless it is the only real angle their army has like Slaanesh. Generally you're not putting your GD across the table where it will get fed a crap unit and then die.

Crusade is a whole other level of potential that I don't consider in my thought process, but I don't quite think it is in scope.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

You mean like maybe not reading the words "The table shows the minimum size of battlefields" (emphasis mine) as "This is the ONLY size and the BEST size of battlefield, and you should NEVER, EVER, play on anything bigger"?

The size of the table is almost irrelevant; the king-of-the-hill scenarios are written to force you to deploy as far forward as possible and move forward, so someone's going to bring whatever 2d6+22" charge-threat jetbike unit and get their automatic first-turn charges, or you lose on scenario. You could play something other than the matched play scenarios, but everyone I know who still plays 9th has gotten so into the most-balanced-edition-ever cult they get super-offended if you suggest playing anything other than a tournament game and refuse to play (the non-tournament players have all quit).

Well, yeah, if both players deploy their entire armies on the line it's going to be a bloodbath. But who does that? And where are these 22+2d6 charge threat range jetbikes?

Not really a problem I've encountered.

Quite the opposite, games usually really start to get interesting and tight on turn 4 and 5 once the chaff has been cleared from the table. I wish it went back to 5-7 or 6 turns.

Karol wrote:
Yet that is how people play it. It is like saying that if someone doesn't like matched play, they should play something else.

I mean, if people don’t like Matched Play they *should* play something else! Open, Narrative and Crusade all exist, lest we forget.

FWIW I’m not seeing the problem the OP describes. Many close games to the wire. The usual foregone conclusions due to poor deployment/great play abound, but the majority of our games are close and play to the end.

The increasing lethality of codexes and smaller board size seems to result in a rather skewed game timeline. Rather than a slow ramping up of intensity, the game instead begins with a bang and then fizzles out into a whimper. It seems to me that one does not see a lot of late game come-backs or sudden swings...instead turns 4-5 are a rather slow moving and tedious game of retrospective wound accounting, where the side with the advantage continues to accrue points as they chase the other opponent to table them after defanging their strongest units.

A fun point about this. players at our FLGS play both 9th and our hybrid 5th ed games and on average we can get in 6 or 7 turns of 5th ed in in the same time it takes the 9th ed players to get through turn 3. i also have had tons of games where those extra random turns have changed the game from tie/win or loss because the objectives are taken in the end.
9th is incredibly slow playing and clunky even after they tried to "streamline" the core rules.

AnomanderRake wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

You mean like maybe not reading the words "The table shows the minimum size of battlefields" (emphasis mine) as "This is the ONLY size and the BEST size of battlefield, and you should NEVER, EVER, play on anything bigger"?

The size of the table is almost irrelevant; the king-of-the-hill scenarios are written to force you to deploy as far forward as possible and move forward, so someone's going to bring whatever 2d6+22" charge-threat jetbike unit and get their automatic first-turn charges, or you lose on scenario. You could play something other than the matched play scenarios, but everyone I know who still plays 9th has gotten so into the most-balanced-edition-ever cult they get super-offended if you suggest playing anything other than a tournament game and refuse to play (the non-tournament players have all quit).

Ouch...but not surprised really. we have several regulars who have lost interest in 9th because they are not tourney players and their armies literally do not exist in the game anymore.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think it'd be better to fix the actual problems (it's too easy to fire at full effectiveness every turn, damage has far outpaced durability, it's too easy to charge from deployment zone to deployment zone on turn one...) rather than take them for granted and restructure the whole game around being too lethal.

You mean like maybe not reading the words "The table shows the minimum size of battlefields" (emphasis mine) as "This is the ONLY size and the BEST size of battlefield, and you should NEVER, EVER, play on anything bigger"?

The size of the table is almost irrelevant; the king-of-the-hill scenarios are written to force you to deploy as far forward as possible and move forward, so someone's going to bring whatever 2d6+22" charge-threat jetbike unit and get their automatic first-turn charges, or you lose on scenario. You could play something other than the matched play scenarios, but everyone I know who still plays 9th has gotten so into the most-balanced-edition-ever cult they get super-offended if you suggest playing anything other than a tournament game and refuse to play (the non-tournament players have all quit).

Well, yeah, if both players deploy their entire armies on the line it's going to be a bloodbath. But who does that? And where are these 22+2d6 charge threat range jetbikes?

Hi, the Harlequins ones have this range, even more if a shadow seer cast Twilight Path on them.

Competitive 40k games always ended within turn 3 on average.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aenar wrote:
Imho 1500 points with the current 60x44" tables would work better than 2000 points.
Games felt cramped at launch, even more so now that points are decreasing across the board and lethality goes up.

Maybe also shrink the deployment zones by an inch or two.

I agree, that's my favorite format too.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
...Well, yeah, if both players deploy their entire armies on the line it's going to be a bloodbath. But who does that?...

If you don't deploy on the line the other person gets to the objectives in the middle of the table and you don't.

...And where are these 22+2d6 charge threat range jetbikes?

Harlequins, definitely. Probably other places too but I've stopped caring enough about reading 8th/9th Codexes to go look them up for you.

In terms of time and effort invested you're generally about 75% the way through the game at the end of round 3 if not more, might as well finish it through.

While I find quite a few of games here are effectively over by end of Battleround 3 there are a non-negligible amount of games that have one player holding out for 2/3 turns only to push out afterwards and secure the win for himself.
Also if anything, turns 4 and 5 are generally the fastest in my experience as most players are pretty spend model wise and there just isn't a lot to do.

Siegfriedfr wrote:
As always, lethality is only a problem because of the lack of alternative activation.

This is aggressively untrue. Alternating activation does nothing absolutely nothing about lethality, and doesn't even purport to.

Alternating activation purports to reduce the first player advantage that is derived from Lanchester's Square Law and inherently exists in most turn-based wargaming system [including AA ones]. [Technically, it's the salvo combat evolution of lanchester's square law, but that's besides the point].

It doesn't have anything to do with lethality ending games on turn 3.



And to some degree, I would argue that the problem isn't even weapon lethality by the numbers. Almost everything is more resilient than it was in the past, especially things with a 3+ save like Sisters or Space Marines, which on the numbers-to-numbers comparison alone, have benefitted massively from the change to AP in resilience, before getting into things like extra wounds. The problem is flexibility and usability. Formerly, there were a lot of restrictions on how one could move, shoot, and charge in combination, which meant that the game state was more a question of tradeoffs and limited the ways that units could actually use the offensive power they had.