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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Apologies to mods who think I'm flouting the rules, but this thread isn't about how to win with the various armies, but a generalized question about the current state of game play.

When I left the game 15 years or so ago, one of the reasons was that I felt that general tactics no longer applied. The proliferation of lists, and special rules meant that success could often by found by doing things that were totally counter-intuitive. For example, the emphasis on close combat meant that it was more important to get a clear shot for shooty armies than use cover, so I saw IG forces forming up in neatly-spaced lines to inflict maximum attrition as each squad was overrun.

I'm curious as to whether that still the case.

Want a better way to do fantasy/historical miniatures battles?  Try Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

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The Dark Imperium

I think it is, but I'm not really one to ask. I feel like what you're getting at has been my deterrent when attempting to learn 9th. That it feels more akin to Magic the Gathering than a strategy game of universal tactics, albeit with some frilly stuff for flavor.

I'll shut up, and let the experts respond.

   
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Sedona, Arizona

Current 40k has one real tactic at play: Trade up.

The game is so incredibly lethal that anything intended to die will die. There are some trap-card esque shinanigens that can be pulled to make a unit survive a particular volley of fire, but this won’t save you from a shooting phase of sustained fire. Like wise melee units have had to be made mind-bogglingly dangerous on account of no-questions-asked fall back without consequences.

The result is a game where anything your enemy can draw los or charge range on is going to get deleted. So the only way to survive is to simply inflict more damage before they can.

Ergo trading up. With the understanding that any unit you expose will immediate evaporate, the tactical layer centers around trying to use your various units to eradicate or completely maim more expensive units before they’re wiped in the next turn.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/03/12 21:33:37


   
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 morganfreeman wrote:
Ergo trading up. With the understanding that any unit you expose will immediate evaporate, the tactical layer centers around trying to use your various units to eradicate or completely maim more expensive units before they’re wiped in the next turn.


Tell me more about how this works. In the old days, you had hidden units and overwatch, so a tactics across all armies was to "draw out" those units so that they could be smothered.

How does this work now? Is it a question of moving into LOS and delivering a volley, hoping that you did enough damage that the return fire won't matter?

Or is it the old "compression" model of play from WHFB 5th edition (for those greybeards who remember it): The side with the most points in the fewest models generally wins.

Want a better way to do fantasy/historical miniatures battles?  Try Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Do you like Star Wars but find the prequels and sequels disappointing?  Man of Destiny is the book series for you.

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Longtime Dakkanaut




To go with an example.

You have a Guard Player and an Eldar player. The Guard player moves a unit of Guardsmen through some ruins and on to an objective. Left to their own devices they will control it next turn. They want to do this because the Primary Objective is mostly about holding Objectives - and the Primary Objective has half the available Victory Points in the game.

The Eldar player doesn't want that to happen. So they send a fully blinged out squad of 10 Howling Banshees charging across the table to kill the Guardsmen squad and claim the objective for themselves. They unsurprisingly do this - in fact its massive overkill. Which isn't really surprising - as the Guardsmen are 65 points, and the Banshees are 190~.

But the Guard player can now go "great, there's a 190~ point of Banshees is out in the open. I can shoot it with other guardsmen squads, tanks etc" - which may well get better returns into Banshees than the 1/3 achieved above.

But then next turn, since the Guard player has moved units up and out from behind LOS-blocking terrain etc, to clear the Banshees and get another of their units on the objective, the Eldar player can respond again with their own units and so on.

So to go back to the above, the Eldar Player would (potentially at least) have been better using just a squad of 5 Banshees. They'd have still had a reasonable shot of clearing the Guard Squad (especially with some chip-fire from other sources etc) - and then there would be only 95 points worth for the Guard Player to jump on, rather than 190. The Eldar player would have had a "better trade" - and would have left the Guard player in a position to get a worse one when they jumped those 5 banshees. (But clearly it depends on everything else happening across the table, secondary objectives and so on.)
   
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here's the best i've got for the one rule of thumb of the game these days.

deploy in cover preferably out of LOS, and hope you get to go first and go for an alpha strike.

in some cases this isn't true like with my last game of guard vs knights. he couldn't hide his knights, and focused my baneblade, and left it with only 5 or 6 wounds.

that was a pretty effective alpha strike since the degraded profile means that only about 1/3 of my shots hit the target.

he finished the baneblade off T2 then targeted my lascannon HWT and my heavy lascannon FOB, creating an effective beta strike.

meanwhile T1 i destroyed one of his big knights, not such an effective plan, rather than removing his smaller knights as much as possible since they were perfectly capable of wrecking all but 2 units i had on the table (baneblade and leman russ).
T2 i killed one of his little knights.

what i should have done was focus fire on the small knights and removed as much firepower from the table as possible.
   
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 morganfreeman wrote:
Ergo trading up. With the understanding that any unit you expose will immediate evaporate, the tactical layer centers around trying to use your various units to eradicate or completely maim more expensive units before they’re wiped in the next turn.


Tell me more about how this works. In the old days, you had hidden units and overwatch, so a tactics across all armies was to "draw out" those units so that they could be smothered.

How does this work now? Is it a question of moving into LOS and delivering a volley, hoping that you did enough damage that the return fire won't matter?


That's always been the case. The only real difference is that here in modern 40k you can pretty much assure it. And you often get to re-roll dice that miss/fail to wound.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Or is it the old "compression" model of play from WHFB 5th edition (for those greybeards who remember it): The side with the most points in the fewest models generally wins.


No, that's generally a real quick way to lose. Because winning in todays game is about controlling objectives.
   
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 morganfreeman wrote:
Ergo trading up. With the understanding that any unit you expose will immediate evaporate, the tactical layer centers around trying to use your various units to eradicate or completely maim more expensive units before they’re wiped in the next turn.


Tell me more about how this works. In the old days, you had hidden units and overwatch, so a tactics across all armies was to "draw out" those units so that they could be smothered.

You still "draw out" units by attemting to goad the adversary into exposing themselves to counterattack, it's just that the counterattack is in the form of your next turn rather than Overwatch fire. Controlling lanes of fire, comitting reserves against an attack and forming counterattacks are all still viable.

There's a bunch of utility that got turned into Strats though, which sucks.

And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

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There's nothing akin to real world tactics left, no. The game functions more like some sort of mobile game MOBA where the trick is to tap the screen at the right time to set off a special power that your opponent forgot you could use.

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 lord_blackfang wrote:
There's nothing akin to real world tactics left, no. The game functions more like some sort of mobile game MOBA where the trick is to tap the screen at the right time to set off a special power that your opponent forgot you could use.


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 Insectum7 wrote:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 morganfreeman wrote:
Ergo trading up. With the understanding that any unit you expose will immediate evaporate, the tactical layer centers around trying to use your various units to eradicate or completely maim more expensive units before they’re wiped in the next turn.


Tell me more about how this works. In the old days, you had hidden units and overwatch, so a tactics across all armies was to "draw out" those units so that they could be smothered.

You still "draw out" units by attemting to goad the adversary into exposing themselves to counterattack, it's just that the counterattack is in the form of your next turn rather than Overwatch fire. Controlling lanes of fire, comitting reserves against an attack and forming counterattacks are all still viable.

There's a bunch of utility that got turned into Strats though, which sucks.


Overwatch is an example of this - it is now a stratagem; which means it costs a command point (CP) to use, and also that you can only use it once per turn...
   
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 lord_blackfang wrote:
There's nothing akin to real world tactics left, no. The game functions more like some sort of mobile game MOBA where the trick is to tap the screen at the right time to set off a special power that your opponent forgot you could use.


That's what I was wondering. The big reason I quit 5th ed. WHFB was that the characters and magic rendered realistic tactics completely moot.

Want a better way to do fantasy/historical miniatures battles?  Try Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Do you like Star Wars but find the prequels and sequels disappointing?  Man of Destiny is the book series for you.

My 2nd edition Warhammer 40k resource page. Check out my other stuff at https://www.ahlloyd.com 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 lord_blackfang wrote:
There's nothing akin to real world tactics left, no. The game functions more like some sort of mobile game MOBA where the trick is to tap the screen at the right time to set off a special power that your opponent forgot you could use.


That's what I was wondering. The big reason I quit 5th ed. WHFB was that the characters and magic rendered realistic tactics completely moot.


I was playing tomb kings in WHFB and I believe the intended tactics was pay money and hope.


For 40k we have strip out a lot, and added a bunch to the terrain rules.
But I think standard 40k as so much of its potential tactics stunted by the ability to press a stop that butten or a do it better butten on so many things.
   
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 lord_blackfang wrote:
There's nothing akin to real world tactics left, no.
I mean, that's pretty blatantly untrue. Force concentration, flanking, forcing breakthroughs are all still viable things to do. But unfortunately a good portion of the nitty-gritty tactics that were viable up through just a few years ago have been locked behind Strats, which is inorganic and incredibly dumb. As an Ultramarine player I still have things like a "fighting withdrawl" available to me without a Strat, which I like a lot.

But a lot has been lost, and it suuuuucks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crispy78 wrote:

Overwatch is an example of this - it is now a stratagem; which means it costs a command point (CP) to use, and also that you can only use it once per turn...

Overwatch is a good example. As a Marine player, here's another few that really bother me:

MeltaBombs: Used to be that Marines could all be using their Krak Grenades in combat against Vehicles. That's been taken away and pseudo-replaced with the Meltabombs Strat
Smoke Launchers: One thing I've done multiple times in earlier editions is drive a bunch of Rhinos/Razorbacks at the opposition and blown Smoke on all of them, just to mass-blitz the opponent with Marine bodies. Well I can't get the same protection anymore when Smoke Launchers are a Strat and can only be used on one vehicle. FU*****
Flakk Missile: Used to be a piece of Wargear I could buy for any Missile Launcher in defense against Aircraft. It's a Strat now.
Suppression Fire: Whirlwinds (Barrage weapons in general) used to cause Pinning checks against a unit. Strat now. :/

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/03/13 17:19:54


And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

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I think that some people expect from w40k, the depth they would only get if they were playing on 32x32 tables with 9-10k pts per side and the game lasting a few weeks.

GW games right now, try to emulate, as much as they can, mobile games. Strategy is something you do on the level of buying an army. Tactics is something you can actualy do on the table. But in case of good armies, they often play themselfs. Necrons and SoB in prior seson were like that . GSC are like that in the seson we have now. The only way to get an outlier to this, if GW intentionaly or not drops the pro verbial ball, and gives us an army which is too good for now. Often because it was tested and "balanced" against the armies that will come out in the next 6 months, which is all nice and good, if it wasn't for covid delays. And then we get funny moments when Custodes get changes to an unreleased codex or have eldar which are balanaced, but only against armies that will come out way in the future. Armies like Votan or the "fixed" marines.

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 Insectum7 wrote:
I mean, that's pretty blatantly untrue. Force concentration, flanking, forcing breakthroughs are all still viable things to do. But unfortunately a good portion of the nitty-gritty tactics that were viable up through just a few years ago have been locked behind Strats, which is inorganic and incredibly dumb. As an Ultramarine player I still have things like a "fighting withdrawl" available to me without a Strat, which I like a lot.

But a lot has been lost, and it suuuuucks.


Maybe not entirely true, but if (as other posters wrote), first turn can essentially decide a game, that's pretty unrealistic. I mean a force isn't just going to stand their passively while getting shot to pieces.

Is a lot of terrain typically used? Does it actually do anything useful? Use of terrain I think is a key part of good tactics.






Want a better way to do fantasy/historical miniatures battles?  Try Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Do you like Star Wars but find the prequels and sequels disappointing?  Man of Destiny is the book series for you.

My 2nd edition Warhammer 40k resource page. Check out my other stuff at https://www.ahlloyd.com 
   
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Regular Dakkanaut





 Insectum7 wrote:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 morganfreeman wrote:
Ergo trading up. With the understanding that any unit you expose will immediate evaporate, the tactical layer centers around trying to use your various units to eradicate or completely maim more expensive units before they’re wiped in the next turn.


Tell me more about how this works. In the old days, you had hidden units and overwatch, so a tactics across all armies was to "draw out" those units so that they could be smothered.

You still "draw out" units by attemting to goad the adversary into exposing themselves to counterattack, it's just that the counterattack is in the form of your next turn rather than Overwatch fire. Controlling lanes of fire, comitting reserves against an attack and forming counterattacks are all still viable.

There's a bunch of utility that got turned into Strats though, which sucks.
hey now, i overwatched the hell out of two redepmtors today! killed one with the overwatch, next turn left the other with only 3 wounds, so he died soon after...overwatch is great.
   
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Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





Sedona, Arizona

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
I mean, that's pretty blatantly untrue. Force concentration, flanking, forcing breakthroughs are all still viable things to do. But unfortunately a good portion of the nitty-gritty tactics that were viable up through just a few years ago have been locked behind Strats, which is inorganic and incredibly dumb. As an Ultramarine player I still have things like a "fighting withdrawl" available to me without a Strat, which I like a lot.

But a lot has been lost, and it suuuuucks.


Maybe not entirely true, but if (as other posters wrote), first turn can essentially decide a game, that's pretty unrealistic. I mean a force isn't just going to stand their passively while getting shot to pieces.

Is a lot of terrain typically used? Does it actually do anything useful? Use of terrain I think is a key part of good tactics.


Competitive 40k has a standard terrain layout, a factor which was implemented to curb the prevelance of snooty alpha strike lists just annihilating any they pulled first turn on.

In terms of terrain itself, all that really matters are los blocking pieces; which have to be flagged as such, as it’s not based on actual view or anything.


Terrain can do a teeny bit more, such as +1 to armor save and such, but given the lethality of the game it doesn’t really matter. There’s also the bizarre factor of how walls and such can be casually walked and shot through, meaning that the only terrain based tactics are sticking your units behind the designated los pieces so they don’t get insta deleted.

   
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
I mean, that's pretty blatantly untrue. Force concentration, flanking, forcing breakthroughs are all still viable things to do. But unfortunately a good portion of the nitty-gritty tactics that were viable up through just a few years ago have been locked behind Strats, which is inorganic and incredibly dumb. As an Ultramarine player I still have things like a "fighting withdrawl" available to me without a Strat, which I like a lot.

But a lot has been lost, and it suuuuucks.

Maybe not entirely true, but if (as other posters wrote), first turn can essentially decide a game, that's pretty unrealistic. I mean a force isn't just going to stand their passively while getting shot to pieces.

Is a lot of terrain typically used? Does it actually do anything useful? Use of terrain I think is a key part of good tactics.

Terrain is huuuge for tactics, absolutely. And to be fair to 9th the terrain rules are probably better than they've been in a long time. There's more LOS blocking, and in fact there are specific reactionary (tactical?) actions one can take in certain terrain types too. I also think that the perceived first turn advantage is extremely contextual. Even way back in 2nd, setting up a poor table or going with certain army build choices could grant big advantages to whomever goes first. I've also seen it argued that, because of how closely the game is tied to objective scoring, going second is often advantageous in 9th.

The prescription for 9th favors a terrain-heavy board. But I'd also argue that an issue in 9th (or just generally in the past decade) is that the armies are big for the table. Model counts have gone up a bit, while tables in the last few years have shrunk a bit too, which doesn't help. A typical 9th ed Marine army for me is probably three times the size of a 2nd ed army. It's a little crowded.

Still, the biggest issue for me is the replacement of formerly organic choices with Strats. But if you killed Strats and played with fewer points on a well-terrained board, that can quickly put you in a much better game.

And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

Tyranid Army Progress -- With Classic Warriors!:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/743240.page#9671598 
   
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
When I left the game 15 years or so ago, one of the reasons was that I felt that general tactics no longer applied. The proliferation of lists, and special rules meant that success could often by found by doing things that were totally counter-intuitive. For example, the emphasis on close combat meant that it was more important to get a clear shot for shooty armies than use cover, so I saw IG forces forming up in neatly-spaced lines to inflict maximum attrition as each squad was overrun.

How is that counter-intuitive?

You realize in Napoleonic times infantry formed precise lines exactly because melee was an option the opponent will inevitably try, so you had to mass fire to repel them before they close in? And it's not like it's an outlier, English armies with their longbows or Spanish tercio long before Napoleon did the same thing, you seem to apply wrong era tactics/assumptions to the game. If anything, this is what IG does in fluff so seeing it replicated on table is a good thing.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Or is it the old "compression" model of play from WHFB 5th edition (for those greybeards who remember it): The side with the most points in the fewest models generally wins.

If you try "compression", especially as Imperial army, as these tend to have the worst units in the game, you will just eat a bucket of dice from broken xeno/chaos gak and your expensive unit will be instantly deleted having achieving nothing. If anything, people today do "decompression" - no vehicles or other big models without OP defences if they can help it (too easy to remove from table), use cheaper models that don't pay for useless stats (see orkstodes and sisters of battle being, funnily enough, way more durable than SM against minmaxed army because they don't spend points on useless defensive stats like Sv or T that most of the time don't matter these days), use minimal size units packing as little upgrades as possible, yes, there are armies that have good elites but by and large you see more chaff than ever...

 lord_blackfang wrote:
There's nothing akin to real world tactics left, no. The game functions more like some sort of mobile game MOBA where the trick is to tap the screen at the right time to set off a special power that your opponent forgot you could use.

This A) completely wrong, B) try finding actual opponent instead of tryhard WAAACer to play with if you experience this regularly, you will see how much more fun (and less of a chore) the game is that way. Or at least someone who likes to win on merit, not gotchas or cheese spam. Muchkin WAAACing is not the norm, no matter what certain posters on Dakka say, most of the people worth playing with want both sides to enjoy the time (or at worst, do not ruin any potential fun on purpose from the start).
   
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I dunno, do some you even try to have fun with like minded opponents? Or even play? The game is a blast, even with its myriad flaws.

 Stormonu wrote:
For me, the joy is in putting some good-looking models on the board and playing out a fantasy battle - not arguing over the poorly-made rules of some 3rd party who neither has any power over my play nor will be visiting me (and my opponent) to ensure we are "playing by the rules"
 
   
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Space having shrunk along with movement being crazy high seems to be a big deal. Even the units templates.are far bigger on a far smaller space now due to base size increases
   
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 Irbis wrote:
How is that counter-intuitive?

You realize in Napoleonic times infantry formed precise lines exactly because melee was an option the opponent will inevitably try, so you had to mass fire to repel them before they close in? And it's not like it's an outlier, English armies with their longbows or Spanish tercio long before Napoleon did the same thing, you seem to apply wrong era tactics/assumptions to the game. If anything, this is what IG does in fluff so seeing it replicated on table is a good thing.


First off, that was not how Napoleonic armies formed up. While they used ranks, they absolutely did not space troops in such a way as to get one volley off before being overrun, line after line. No one did that.*

What is more, your examples involve archery and smoothbore flintlock muskets, not automatic weapons or laser cannon. That's why it was counter-intuitive.

But I don't want to digress into the sins (or virtues) of 3rd/4th edition, I'm more interested in how things are now.

*Okay, the American militia at Cowpens fired two volleys and ran, but they also expected (and did) escape alive. It was a one-off tactic.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/03/14 21:29:07


Want a better way to do fantasy/historical miniatures battles?  Try Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Do you like Star Wars but find the prequels and sequels disappointing?  Man of Destiny is the book series for you.

My 2nd edition Warhammer 40k resource page. Check out my other stuff at https://www.ahlloyd.com 
   
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Apologies to mods who think I'm flouting the rules, but this thread isn't about how to win with the various armies, but a generalized question about the current state of game play.

When I left the game 15 years or so ago, one of the reasons was that I felt that general tactics no longer applied. The proliferation of lists, and special rules meant that success could often by found by doing things that were totally counter-intuitive. For example, the emphasis on close combat meant that it was more important to get a clear shot for shooty armies than use cover, so I saw IG forces forming up in neatly-spaced lines to inflict maximum attrition as each squad was overrun.

I'm curious as to whether that still the case.


I just returned to the table after a very long break. I played a handful of games with Eldar in 7th but before that I played all of 3rd and 4th with a few games of 5th before stopping.
I loved 3rd. I still consider it the best 40k and I feel that most people who enjoy 8th/9th never played before 5th.
9th is not the 40k you knew or loved. It's is completely different. I would go as far as to say unrecognizable. I've played 3 games of 9th (1000, 1500, and 2000 points). I hate it. It's trash. It's boring, way too complicated and feels completely pointless when the game ends... On turn 1 or 2.
My friends and I have all been waiting for years for anything like 3rd to come back. 10th will determine if we pay attention to GW anymore and just use old systems.
   
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NE Ohio, USA

Uptonius wrote:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Apologies to mods who think I'm flouting the rules, but this thread isn't about how to win with the various armies, but a generalized question about the current state of game play.

When I left the game 15 years or so ago, one of the reasons was that I felt that general tactics no longer applied. The proliferation of lists, and special rules meant that success could often by found by doing things that were totally counter-intuitive. For example, the emphasis on close combat meant that it was more important to get a clear shot for shooty armies than use cover, so I saw IG forces forming up in neatly-spaced lines to inflict maximum attrition as each squad was overrun.

I'm curious as to whether that still the case.


I just returned to the table after a very long break. I played a handful of games with Eldar in 7th but before that I played all of 3rd and 4th with a few games of 5th before stopping.
I loved 3rd. I still consider it the best 40k and I feel that most people who enjoy 8th/9th never played before 5th.
9th is not the 40k you knew or loved. It's is completely different. I would go as far as to say unrecognizable. I've played 3 games of 9th (1000, 1500, and 2000 points). I hate it. It's trash. It's boring, way too complicated and feels completely pointless when the game ends... On turn 1 or 2.
My friends and I have all been waiting for years for anything like 3rd to come back. 10th will determine if we pay attention to GW anymore and just use old systems.


I don't know what 10th will bring, but I'm fairly confidant in predicting that if you're pining for a return of 3e style game you'll be disappointed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Uptonius wrote:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Apologies to mods who think I'm flouting the rules, but this thread isn't about how to win with the various armies, but a generalized question about the current state of game play.

When I left the game 15 years or so ago, one of the reasons was that I felt that general tactics no longer applied. The proliferation of lists, and special rules meant that success could often by found by doing things that were totally counter-intuitive. For example, the emphasis on close combat meant that it was more important to get a clear shot for shooty armies than use cover, so I saw IG forces forming up in neatly-spaced lines to inflict maximum attrition as each squad was overrun.

I'm curious as to whether that still the case.


I just returned to the table after a very long break. I played a handful of games with Eldar in 7th but before that I played all of 3rd and 4th with a few games of 5th before stopping.
I loved 3rd. I still consider it the best 40k and I feel that most people who enjoy 8th/9th never played before 5th.
9th is not the 40k you knew or loved. It's is completely different. I would go as far as to say unrecognizable. I've played 3 games of 9th (1000, 1500, and 2000 points). I hate it. It's trash. It's boring, way too complicated and feels completely pointless when the game ends... On turn 1 or 2.
My friends and I have all been waiting for years for anything like 3rd to come back. 10th will determine if we pay attention to GW anymore and just use old systems.


I don't know what 10th will bring, but I'm fairly confidant in predicting that if you're pining for a return of 3e style game you'll be disappointed.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/03/16 18:05:17


 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Uptonius wrote:


I loved 3rd. I still consider it the best 40k and I feel that most people who enjoy 8th/9th never played before 5th.


I had a lot of fun with 2nd, 3rd and 5th; personally, 9th is my fave so far... But that's because I only play Crusade escalation campaigns, and because I personally prefer role-playing games to table-top wargames. Crusade from 25-50 PL has a real roleplaying feel to it- it is similar in some ways to the original Rogue Trader game which eventually became the 40k we all know and loved.

Uptonius wrote:

9th is not the 40k you knew or loved. It's is completely different. I would go as far as to say unrecognizable. I've played 3 games of 9th (1000, 1500, and 2000 points). I hate it. It's trash. It's boring, way too complicated and feels completely pointless when the game ends... On turn 1 or 2.
My friends and I have all been waiting for years for anything like 3rd to come back. 10th will determine if we pay attention to GW anymore and just use old systems.


I don't think I'm going to play 10th- I have gotten used to having all kinds of tools that I can use to build interesting campaign games, and 10th looks like it is going to be a full reset with indexes so that everyone can get playing right away. A lot of people who like table top wargames and common tactical options really like "Index Hammer" - it's usually not as bloated as playing with full codexes and campaign books. Perfectly valid opinion.

Personally, I think simple, streamlined games full of common tactics can be fun, but they don't give me as much to work with when I'm building campaigns, which means they're just stand alone games and I can take them or leave them. They might be fun every now and again, but I'm not compelled to play, and there isn't really a lot to get immersed in.


   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Apologies to mods who think I'm flouting the rules, but this thread isn't about how to win with the various armies, but a generalized question about the current state of game play.

When I left the game 15 years or so ago, one of the reasons was that I felt that general tactics no longer applied. The proliferation of lists, and special rules meant that success could often by found by doing things that were totally counter-intuitive. For example, the emphasis on close combat meant that it was more important to get a clear shot for shooty armies than use cover, so I saw IG forces forming up in neatly-spaced lines to inflict maximum attrition as each squad was overrun.

I'm curious as to whether that still the case.


Out of idle curiosity, when did you start playing?

The 3rd Edition Imperial Guard codex (circa 1999) has a section on Tactics (page 37). For both Attack and Defence it has the infantry in lines. It even recommends doing so and to avoid hugging cover. For the Defence Formation it advises us to have "picket lines of infantry spread thin...minimum of 4" between lines to avoid Sweeping Advances contacting the second line" etc. So the thing that drove you out of 40K was officially in place as tactics advice in 1999.

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Out of idle curiosity, when did you start playing?


My first game was with Rogue Trader before 1991.

The 3rd Edition Imperial Guard codex (circa 1999) has a section on Tactics (page 37). For both Attack and Defence it has the infantry in lines. It even recommends doing so and to avoid hugging cover. For the Defence Formation it advises us to have "picket lines of infantry spread thin...minimum of 4" between lines to avoid Sweeping Advances contacting the second line" etc. So the thing that drove you out of 40K was officially in place as tactics advice in 1999.


I didn't say it was "the thing" I said it was "one of the things."

I initially liked 3rd, but over time it seemed less like a wargame and more of a collection of game hacks distributed among the armies. Add in the looming massive book buy to stay 'current' in 4th, and I decided to get out.

I posted because I was curious as to the current state of the game. I suppose I could do a "why I came to hate 3rd ed." thread, but I already wrote that many years ago. Seems a bit dated by now.

Want a better way to do fantasy/historical miniatures battles?  Try Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Do you like Star Wars but find the prequels and sequels disappointing?  Man of Destiny is the book series for you.

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Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Out of idle curiosity, when did you start playing?


My first game was with Rogue Trader before 1991.

The 3rd Edition Imperial Guard codex (circa 1999) has a section on Tactics (page 37). For both Attack and Defence it has the infantry in lines. It even recommends doing so and to avoid hugging cover. For the Defence Formation it advises us to have "picket lines of infantry spread thin...minimum of 4" between lines to avoid Sweeping Advances contacting the second line" etc. So the thing that drove you out of 40K was officially in place as tactics advice in 1999.


I didn't say it was "the thing" I said it was "one of the things."

I initially liked 3rd, but over time it seemed less like a wargame and more of a collection of game hacks distributed among the armies. Add in the looming massive book buy to stay 'current' in 4th, and I decided to get out.

I posted because I was curious as to the current state of the game. I suppose I could do a "why I came to hate 3rd ed." thread, but I already wrote that many years ago. Seems a bit dated by now.


You're right, your hate of 40K is dated. But you do you!

In all seriousness, edition churn and associated fatigue is a real thing. I walked away for 7th but returned for 8th and really liked it. I think I am little burned out on 9th Ed right now, but I am not sure if I am looking forward to 10th or dreading another series of book buys.

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
 
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