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 Hellebore wrote:
You're admitting you need to let fiat decide pretty important aspects of the game, which is objectively poor game design.

The 5th ed los rules literally create modelling for advantage and they make it very hard to actually hide (just like modern 40k).

Maybe it's the fact that I started in 2nd where they literally had rules for hiding, but the ability to hide your advance and manoeuvre outside enemy loS is pretty vital to me for an interesting tactically challenging game.

So I much prefer actual true line of sight - true in the more accurate sense that those los rules are better reflections of the intelligence of soldiers taking cover on a battlefield, rather than moving around like a squad of cardboard cutouts all frozen in place.


Also, they allow for beautiful conversions and gamer creativity - jump troops in mid air, crouching snipers, mid flight daemons, counts as craziness etc with 0 negative impact on the quality of the game or the social contract between players because the rules make it impossible to model for advantage.

No i am admitting i play with good people who aren't GAKholes who actually understand what 40K is-a wargame to simulate epic themed battles in the 40K setting within a basic points frame work structure for army building. not a game made for balanced tournament play. you will find the game to be much more fun as a social experience if everybody understands what 40K is, instead of trying to make it something it was never meant to be like GW has.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

How so? Can you elaborate on what specifically makes you feel that way?

Wait wasn't the 5th Ed Space Marine codex the Matt "Spiritual Liege" Ward codex?

And I do recall the 5th Ed Nid codex being garbage, maybe he meant the 4th one?

Easy, one in 5 minis having the exact same pose.

Look, I like the primaris minis as display MINIS(i have 6k of them). Gaming wise I find that the repetition in posing obvious and lacking "organic" variety.

So any primaris I buy(haven't in a while) are basically for looky looky.

Racerguy180 wrote:
Easy, one in 5 minis having the exact same pose.

Look, I like the primaris minis as display MINIS(i have 6k of them). Gaming wise I find that the repetition in posing obvious and lacking "organic" variety.

So any primaris I buy(haven't in a while) are basically for looky looky.

I like to take multiples of the the same model with the same pose, hopefully a very specifc and distinct pose like the intercessor with his gun in one hand pointed straight down from the pushfit 8th edition launch box, and run an entire army of that.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
reading through my old Tyranid 5th ed book last night and though 5th was far from perfect it portrays 40k so much better than what we have now, looing in the marine codex and the "first born" look as an army leagues better than anything primaris so far, in fact I had not noticed it previously but seeing a th ed marine army on display in that book brought it into stark contrast.

Marines then looked like an army in 40k, Primaris now look like a product based on marines and very corporate... soulless.

How so? Can you elaborate on what specifically makes you feel that way?

It could just be nostalgia at play but since 5th is neither my favourite edition of the one I started with I do not think that is a major factor, its kind of a feeling that is hard to describe, when I look at the images from those 5th ed books (i am going through them all at the moment as a mate wants to play 5th) it gives off a tone, a vibe that simply does not seem to exist in modern 40k for me.

the black and white images, the general tone of the setting being much more.. maybe not serious but grounded (for 40k), modern 40k seems to be moving further and further away from the individuals standing against the dark to angels and gods battling with the faceless masses in the background, the stakes are so high we have lost the personal touch, you can feel this through the loss of options, customisation and the continued homoginisation of the game, its not longer YOUR army, its just an army, its not longer YOUR Guard commander, its just a spreadsheet option.

Like I said its hard to describe as its just a feeling, does not mean I am right, just what I feel is happening, the game has no soul.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

How so? Can you elaborate on what specifically makes you feel that way?

Wait wasn't the 5th Ed Space Marine codex the Matt "Spiritual Liege" Ward codex?

And I do recall the 5th Ed Nid codex being garbage, maybe he meant the 4th one?

neither of those things matter to me over a decade on, its the tone, the art, the miniatures, paint schemes, I am not commenting on power or quality of the rules just the general tone.

Hell my favourite codex was 3rd ed necrons because it oozed that tone so much... its basically a pamphlet

Sure, but even lore wise and tone wise 4th was still better. 5th was basically just battle of Macragge retelling #5, battle of Iyanden retelling #3 and a little bit of Leviathan.

4th had the Inquisition losing their collective gak with speculation and graphs, and everyone knows graphs and math are scary.

And also 5th ed codexes had horrible organization with rules being spread over the lore section and the army list section.

 Tyran wrote:
Sure, but even lore wise and tone wise 4th was still better. 5th was basically just battle of Macragge retelling #5, battle of Iyanden retelling #3 and a little bit of Leviathan.

4th had the Inquisition losing their collective gak with speculation and graphs, and everyone knows graphs and math are scary.

And also 5th ed codexes had horrible organization with rules being spread over the lore section and the army list section.

I sort of recall 5th being when the bigger balance issues came in (looking at grey knights in particular), largely thanks to wound allocation if nothing else, but it felt more of an abusive ruleset in many ways as well because of those changes.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
2 major notes:
1) on the topic of "meaningful options" and "meaningfulness":
There are 2 ways around game design: spoon-feed the players how things "should" work and just let them fool around, or give them a setting/reality to exist in, options to exist in that setting *with*, and let *them* decide how meaningful those options are. Then, let *them* decide whether to choose new/different options or not.

In the second perspective, the game designer's responsibility is to correctly model the setting/reality, and the player's responsibility to decide meaning for the options they are given within it. Balance is achievable by external controls, like points costs and army structure requirements - as well as keeping a tight lid on the playable factions. If your background/setting has a faction called The Unstoppable Doom, then maybe that faction shouldn't be playable on the tabletop - unless the name is a lie of course!

If it matters to me that my Company Commander has Carapace Armor or not, then let him have Carapace Armor. If you think it doesn't matter, then you are welcome to *not* choose that option - but when I save 33% more wounds inflicted on me than you do, maybe you will change your tune. Or maybe you won't, because unlike my army build, your Company Commander is not the lynchpin of your C2 Voxnet, and you have other solutions to the leadership problem built from other options like Trademark Items on your platoon commanders for the Reroll or the Independent Commissars doctrine to help keep your infantry squads in line at the front...

2) if crusade requires a bunch of homebrew add-ons to be a Truly Narrative system, then why publish it at all? I can homebrew rules onto the "default" 40k just as easily, and my fellow group members can accept or reject the homebrew just as easily.

Number 2 is both classic 'gamerism'(i.e. if it's not immediately perfect with no changes, alterations, or considerations, it is not only completely without value but creates a zero sum proposition between itself and whatever ephemeral thing you, personally, believe those developmental resources should have been spent on.) and ties directly into Number 1, despite your framing of them making them seem unrelated.

Through the power of 'No True Scotsman' ANY system can be a Not Truly X system. Horus Heresy needs homebrew add-ons to be a True Wargame because it's operational ranges and relative capabilities of different men and material are so heavily abstracted and gamified, that they don't ultimately do anything to represent the battles the players are supposed to be reenacting.

See, easy.

Crusade is simply an alternate method to engage with 40k as a ruleset and as a settings. That it requires 'homebrews' to match the grognard definition of a 'Truly Narrative system' is something that vacillates between irrelevant and actively positive. Players who homebrew their own crusade rules based off of the simple foundation of officially published rules, are engaging in a way that allows them to express creativity and learn basic design principles through trial and error.

Or 'play', if you will.

 aphyon wrote:
No i am admitting i play with good people who aren't GAKholes who actually understand what 40K is-a wargame to simulate epic themed battles in the 40K setting within a basic points frame work structure for army building. not a game made for balanced tournament play.

I also enjoy 40K as a social experience, not for tournament play. But I also recognize when the rules are inadequate, and I'm having to invoke houserules or roll off to resolve problems that other games don't experience. The TLOS system has serious issues; you're just assuming the responsibility of managing them through social contracts and houserules. That's fine, sometimes co-creating with the designer is necessary to make a system work for what you want it to do, but it doesn't mean those issues don't exist.

Same deal as CCS on the previous page saying that Crusade is great for narrative, so long as you only pick upgrades relevant to the last battle, come up with personal objectives for yourself in each battle, not use the mechanic of paying off scars, write up elaborate battle reports, and convert models based on what happened in the campaign. You know, just supply all the narrative yourself, and then Crusade makes a great narrative system.

It's like making stone soup and then praising the rock for what a great broth it made.

 Tyran wrote:

Wait wasn't the 5th Ed Space Marine codex the Matt "Spiritual Liege" Ward codex?

The fifth edition codex originated sternguard and vanguard veterans, the biker command squad, and all-bike lists, all of which were and are very popular. It also didn’t have the sad lineart template drawings next to the list entries that the ‘04 codex did, it opted for something with any amount of aesthetic instead.

Everything in the world has a golden boy who’s the most successful and powerful. There’s always a Tom Brady, always. Space Marines, who are defined by being the most hierarchical and steroidal, definitely have a rich kid star quarterback, definitely. When people are bothered by Calgar of the time, it’s because they’re weak.

It’s also not just a vibe that someone says 10th edition marines look based-on-marines and not really marines, or corporate. For fifth edition the GW director of product development, who created the Emproer, Marines, the warp, etc, was employed at GW. It could be characterized as one continuous creative effort from 1985-2010. Regardless of whether marines in 2023 “look” corporate, they factually are corporate. No judgement needed.

Gotta love how the nostalgia cycle has made people defend the 5th SM codex.

Things change, ya'll.

leopard wrote:
must say now individual models have their own card with their own stats the idea of "here is a USR and is +1 on stat x" would be seriously annoying

bake it into the profile, stick a little "*" next to it and have text "profile modified" so it doesn't appear to be an accident and run with it

I would prefer they just go wild with keywords and USR's. The keyword system is so powerful but they criminally underuse it - for starters every unit should have at least one of several category keywords beyond Infantry/Vehicle etc. Biological/Mechanical for things like Haywire/EMP etc.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Gotta love how the nostalgia cycle has made people defend the 5th SM codex.

Things change, ya'll.

To go a little Baylan Skoll on things; I think people often like the ideas and potential of something more than the actual experience. The potential, whether its realized or not is where you get a fervor of ideas before the realities on the table grind them away. To be fair, for most people, playing the game represents a fraction of the time they spend engaging with it. For a lot of people this potential entertains them for hundreds of hours between the handful of games they get a year. It's easy to look back on all the fun you had thinking about the game, even if the actual experience on the table wasn't quite as engaging.

pelicaniforce wrote:
It also didn’t have the sad lineart template drawings next to the list entries that the ‘04 codex did, it opted for something with any amount of aesthetic instead.

Those line art template drawings were great. And the cover art to the 4th ed book is head and shoulders above the 5th ed one.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Gotta love how the nostalgia cycle has made people defend the 5th SM codex.

Things change, ya'll.

The codex/rules themselves were fine. The return of Combat Squads, plus the automatic arming of every Marine with Bolt Pistol, Frag and Krak was great. What people complained about was the Matt Ward storytelling, in particular Calgar punching out an Avatar. Rules-wise though? Solid book.

I never really understood the hate for that. Calgar has a power fist. On tabletop he can, in fact, punch out an Avatar. If you can do it in the game, then is it not technically fluffy storytelling?

chaos0xomega wrote:
I never really understood the hate for that. Calgar has a power fist. On tabletop he can, in fact, punch out an Avatar. If you can do it in the game, then is it not technically fluffy storytelling?

In 10th Edition, Calgar is T6 2+/4++ W6.
He has 6 WS2+ S8 AP-3 D3 TwinLinked swings.

The Avatar Of Khaine is T12 2+/4++ W14 Halves Damage.
It has 6 WS2+ S14 AP-4 Dd6+2 swings or 12 WS2+ S7 AP-2 D2 swings.

Calgar does an average of 2.78 damage per combat to the Avatar.
The Avatar does an average of 11.46 (Strike) or 6.67 (Sweep) to Calgar.

Put another way, it takes Calgar an average of five combats to bop the Avatar, and he cannot (even with perfect rolls) kill it in one combat.
The Avatar, meanwhile, consistently bodies Calgar in one phase.

-----------------------------------------

Back in 7th (which I have the rules for, and can't go back to 5th as I lack those rules) Calgar was T4 2+/4++ W4 Eternal Warrior. He had 5 (thanks to two weapons) WS6 S8 AP2 attacks at I5.
The Avatar Of Khaine was T6 3+/5++ W5. It had 5 WS10 S8 AP1 attacks at I10.

Calgar hit on 4s, Avatar hit on 3s, and would strike first even if Calgar charged. So, the Avatar would do 1.39 wounds per combat to Calgar, with Calgar doing the exact same back.
It was actually more likely for Calgar to win back in 7th than he is in 10th, but even then, the odds are NOT in his favor.

-----------------------------------------

Two questions for anyone with the 5th Edition 'Dex:

1) Did Calgar have Eternal Warrior? Because if not, he'd be pasted if he failed even a single save against the Avatar.
2) How is Calgar winning described? Is it a hard-fought, harrowing, and dangerous victory? Or just a footnote of how badass Calgar is?

The Avatar was the jobber back then, getting beaten by everyone.

And I liked the artwork in the 4th Ed book. They all came from the concept art that was made for 4th Ed, some of which was never made into miniature form (like the redesigned Devastators). I had hoped those designs would see the light of day with the Primaris release, but instead we got Compensators...

 JNAProductions wrote:

Two questions for anyone with the 5th Edition 'Dex:

1) Did Calgar have Eternal Warrior? Because if not, he'd be pasted if he failed even a single save against the Avatar.
2) How is Calgar winning described? Is it a hard-fought, harrowing, and dangerous victory? Or just a footnote of how badass Calgar is?

1) Calgar does have Eternal Warrior, but imo that doesn't matter, given the story context.
2) Story goes as follows, Avatar kills a bunch of guys while "shrugging off" heavy weapons, TH/SS Terminators and the like. Calgar comes in at the tail end and barely defeats the Avatar while he himself takes a beating. A reasonable interpretation is that the Avatar is pretty heavily hurt by the time Calgar gets there, and he lands the final blow while fighting alongside surviving Terminators. And that all works fine IMO, the "facts" function fine. It's just a very comic-bookey sort of tale, told poorly. But it's also totally a thing that could happen 'on-table'.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Two questions for anyone with the 5th Edition 'Dex:

1) Did Calgar have Eternal Warrior? Because if not, he'd be pasted if he failed even a single save against the Avatar.
2) How is Calgar winning described? Is it a hard-fought, harrowing, and dangerous victory? Or just a footnote of how badass Calgar is?

1) Calgar does have Eternal Warrior, but imo that doesn't matter, given the story context.
2) Story goes as follows, Avatar kills a bunch of guys while "shrugging off" heavy weapons, TH/SS Terminators and the like. Calgar comes in at the tail end and barely defeats the Avatar while he himself takes a beating. A reasonable interpretation is that the Avatar is pretty heavily hurt by the time Calgar gets there, and he lands the final blow while fighting alongside surviving Terminators. And that all works fine IMO, the "facts" function fine. It's just a very comic-bookey sort of tale, told poorly.

Yeah, that's fair.

If Calgar was lacking Eternal Warrior, then he'd be pretty toast even if he could one-round the Avatar, with an 80% chance of getting killed with five attacks/90% chance if the Avatar charges for +2 attacks.
But with Eternal Warrior, he's less than a 10% chance of dying to 7 attacks/barely over 2% with only 5.

So, with your point number two in mind, seems pretty reasonable.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The Avatar was the jobber back then, getting beaten by everyone.

Yeah Imo that was the main issue.

It's not great, but I'd still put it above the Ghazgull and Ragnar thing, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah, that's fair.

If Calgar was lacking Eternal Warrior, then he'd be pretty toast even if he could one-round the Avatar, with an 80% chance of getting killed with five attacks/90% chance if the Avatar charges for +2 attacks.
But with Eternal Warrior, he's less than a 10% chance of dying to 7 attacks/barely over 2% with only 5.

So, with your point number two in mind, seems pretty reasonable.

Yeah 'on table' he could have been leading a unit too, I think allowing for bodyguard shennanigans, iirc.

I once saw a unit of 4 Firewarriors kill an Avatar in melee in 3rd Ed.

They ain't no thang.

 Formosa wrote:
.

Marines then looked like an army in 40k, Primaris now look like a product based on marines and very corporate... soulless.

I feel the same way. Primaris fluff is dumb and it feels like a weird add-on that makes Marines as a whole seem disjointed.

However, it may just be growing pains. By the next edition, Primaris will probably have completely replaced regular Marines and the armies will at least seem more aesthetically unified.

 Insectum7 wrote:
What people complained about was the Matt Ward storytelling, in particular Calgar punching out an Avatar. Rules-wise though? Solid book.

And?
I've seen more unlikely things occur during actual pkay.

ccs wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
What people complained about was the Matt Ward storytelling, in particular Calgar punching out an Avatar. Rules-wise though? Solid book.

And?
I've seen more unlikely things occur during actual pkay.

Yeah, me too. But some people found it distasteful, which is fair to a degree.

And lore is rarely written about that time an autogun brained a Marine either, but we've seen that all the time too.

It was a sign that they were changing how they treated characters in the game. It set the stage for more take downs, especially from Ward. And usually exclusively marine on anything else. You rarely read about badass gobok who killed a chapter master and his retinue, or an exarch that killed an assassin execution squad. No it's always marines getting the cool story.

And we saw exactly that, from Avatars to THE sanguinor (dumbest name of anything ever) flying a bloodthirster into the air all anime style and don't forget that walk of shame wet dream that was first release Draigo. They seem to have done a little walking back on him, but his story is just the worst fanfic.

And when a story about non marines doing cool gak like the harlequins infiltrating terra and killing custodes, well that has to be retconned so the fanbois butts don't hurt too much...

The named characters went from examples of how to create your own characters, to the protagonists of the setting that immediately NPC-ified whoever they were fighting.


EDIT: IMO the soul of 40k was the setting itself being the protagonist, with all these characters being dragged along by the weight of history. The setting revolved around its own inertia, not on the whims of specific characters that had models. The setting chewed up and spat out people with names, because they survived only at its convenience. Any story with a protagonist existed at the mercy of the setting, not the popularity of the character.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it began around the time they retconned Eldrad's death after the 13th black crusade. They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then. Characters that were historical (Macharius) have disappeared. It's '12 seconds to midnight attendees only' now.

Now if you want a character to appear in a historical battle, you just have to pick from a growing range of semi-immortals. Rather than expanding the stories with historical characters.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Two questions for anyone with the 5th Edition 'Dex:

1) Did Calgar have Eternal Warrior? Because if not, he'd be pasted if he failed even a single save against the Avatar.
2) How is Calgar winning described? Is it a hard-fought, harrowing, and dangerous victory? Or just a footnote of how badass Calgar is?

1) Calgar does have Eternal Warrior, but imo that doesn't matter, given the story context.
2) Story goes as follows, Avatar kills a bunch of guys while "shrugging off" heavy weapons, TH/SS Terminators and the like. Calgar comes in at the tail end and barely defeats the Avatar while he himself takes a beating. A reasonable interpretation is that the Avatar is pretty heavily hurt by the time Calgar gets there, and he lands the final blow while fighting alongside surviving Terminators. And that all works fine IMO, the "facts" function fine. It's just a very comic-bookey sort of tale, told poorly. But it's also totally a thing that could happen 'on-table'.

Yeah. From what I recall, the story is written in a way that really makes it seem like Calgar was suddenly able to solo the avatar in a duel. Which... Dude is literally just a marine who found a right-handed power fist. Having him solo the avatar just feels really cringe. It's like someone writing fanfic about their OC beating up Thanos with their bare hands.

But most if not all factions have their share of cringe lore. Lore aside, I recall the 5th edition marine book being popular among marines for the way it let you field named characters and thus make your army feel more like the relevant subfaction (ex: Vulkan made your army better with flamers and meltas), and mildly despised by non-marines who ended up on the receiving end of drop pod shenanigans.

(Drop pods were seen as annoying because they both allowed you to alpha strike really hard and also basically ignored all the risks/drawbacks to deepstriking that every other army in the game had to deal with.)

Oh. And I think that was one of the editions where ATSKNF was kind of a feelsbad rule for your opponent. Also, las-plas razorback spam was a thing, though iirc that didn't really hit its stride until the Space Wolves book.


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 Hellebore wrote:

And we saw exactly that, from Avatars to THE sanguinor (dumbest name of anything ever) flying a bloodthirster into the air all anime style and don't forget that walk of shame wet dream that was first release Draigo. They seem to have done a little walking back on him, but his story is just the worst fanfic.

Draigo is like if you took Samurai Jack, and then cut out all the clever or dramatic moments and replaced them with monotonous violence and fireballs.

Also, I'm not sure we can be too upset about anime style bloodthirster executions. After all, 7th edition had that campaign where the white scars popped wheelies while ramping off craters so they could shoo their bolters at planes.

And when a story about non marines doing cool gak like the harlequins infiltrating terra and killing custodes, well that has to be retconned so the fanbois butts don't hurt too much...

I have mixed feels about that story. The harlies did make it look surprisingly easy to get surprisingly close to the emperor. But also, we're talking about the most fast and elite eldar in the setting barring named characters using the element of surprise and a one-time webway trick to launch a desperate, suicidal mission to get in the room with the Emperor... and they still failed in their goal. People got way more testy than I expected considering the story still saw the harlies failing.

The named characters went from examples of how to create your own characters, to the protagonists of the setting that immediately NPC-ified whoever they were fighting.


EDIT: IMO the soul of 40k was the setting itself being the protagonist, with all these characters being dragged along by the weight of history. The setting revolved around its own inertia, not on the whims of specific characters that had models. The setting chewed up and spat out people with names, because they survived only at its convenience. Any story with a protagonist existed at the mercy of the setting, not the popularity of the character.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it began around the time they retconned Eldrad's death after the 13th black crusade. They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then. Characters that were historical (Macharius) have disappeared. It's '12 seconds to midnight attendees only' now.

Now if you want a character to appear in a historical battle, you just have to pick from a growing range of semi-immortals. Rather than expanding the stories with historical characters.

See, I always liked named characters when they were used to showcase an interesting little corner of the setting and give you a canon personality to root for on the tabletop. The problem with how they've been used recently, I think, is that they're frequently being presented as movers and shakers that the galaxy revolves around. I don't want to read about how the fate of the galaxy hinges on Guilliman punching Mortarion; I want to see Lukas trolling his wolf lord on Fenris and Yriel being an arrogant smarty pants on Iyanden.

 Hellebore wrote:
They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then.

Yarrick.

And they do dumb stuff, like have a big showdown between Ragnar and Ghaz, and Ghaz loses, being decapitated, but then Markari collects the Dragon Balls and wishes him back the Orks just attach his head to someone else so it was yet another stalemate where nothing happened.

That change is quite a fundamental one to how 40k feels.

Going from a pseudo historical perspective of this massive setting, to the tiny perspective of one character really changes how the game is pitched.

From the very beginning, from that front text piece talking about how vast the galaxy is and how you won't be missed, the setting has been pitched as this massive entity that everyone is doing what they can just to survive in.

The characters were beholden to it. Now, those characters reshape it, and thus shrink it down to something a person can manipulate, rather than an eldritch abomination that hangs over their heads.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I have mixed feels about that story. The harlies did make it look surprisingly easy to get surprisingly close to the emperor. But also, we're talking about the most fast and elite eldar in the setting barring named characters using the element of surprise and a one-time webway trick to launch a desperate, suicidal mission to get in the room with the Emperor... and they still failed in their goal. People got way more testy than I expected considering the story still saw the harlies failing.

Because space marines (and custodes by association) aren't allowed to lose and no one is allowed to have cool stories like marines do that show another army doing cool stuff. That's marine business. you aren't allow to have it. Especially if marines/custodes are the ones losing.

No one else is allowed to have elites that rival them, no one can have warriors that make them lose in the dirt. You have to play the crap team and like it, so everyone else can play the cool team and stomp you. You should feel grateful that you get to be the bad NPC team that the fanboi superheroes stomp all over. Don't even think about assuming you're on an equal footing as one of a range of equally presented factions in a game. It's Space Marine vs NPCs, nothing more.


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then.

Yarrick.

And they do dumb stuff, like have a big showdown between Ragnar and Ghaz, and Ghaz loses, being decapitated, but then Markari collects the Dragon Balls and wishes him back the Orks just attach his head to someone else so it was yet another stalemate where nothing happened.

Ah cool of course. Yarrick is perhaps an easier one to kill, given he was old and came out of retirement specifically for Armageddon 3.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
They kept Tycho dead at Armageddon, but no special character has died that had a model (that I can think of), since then.

Yarrick.

And they do dumb stuff, like have a big showdown between Ragnar and Ghaz, and Ghaz loses, being decapitated, but then Markari collects the Dragon Balls and wishes him back the Orks just attach his head to someone else so it was yet another stalemate where nothing happened.

Yeah. I know they were using it as a gimmick to sell boxes, but the named character vs named character stories are kind of inherently flawed. Generally you end up with a stalemate per the Ragnar vs Ghaz thing, and also you end up doing that Star Wars thing where the galaxy feels smaller because the handful of people we already know about keep running into each other. If you're going to use named characters in lore, you should probably have them doing their own thing 99% of the time. Use them as a chance to showcase one specific cool thing that exists in the galaxy.

Hellebore wrote:That change is quite a fundamental one to how 40k feels.

Going from a pseudo historical perspective of this massive setting, to the tiny perspective of one character really changes how the game is pitched.

From the very beginning, from that front text piece talking about how vast the galaxy is and how you won't be missed, the setting has been pitched as this massive entity that everyone is doing what they can just to survive in.

The characters were beholden to it. Now, those characters reshape it, and thus shrink it down to something a person can manipulate, rather than an eldritch abomination that hangs over their heads.

Going to partially push back here. While I don't like the way the galaxy seems to revolve around some of the named characters these days, I also don't love when the setting is actually hopeless. Putting the characters through a bunch of pain and misery is way more fun when there's a sliver of hope. Constant hopelesness removes the stakes. That's why I really like the ynnari being added to the setting. The fact that they're out there angling for a slim chance at a relatively not terrible future suddenly makes every battle involving craftworlders (even non-ynnari ones) feel like it has a point. If your craftworld can hold on for just a few more centuries, maybe they'll actually live to see a better future.

Actually achieving that future probably wouldn't suit the setting, but spending lives against an ork Waagh because you're holding out for the final buzzer is way more interesting than being screwed regardless of the fight's outcome.

 LunarSol wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Gotta love how the nostalgia cycle has made people defend the 5th SM codex.

Things change, ya'll.

To go a little Baylan Skoll on things; I think people often like the ideas and potential of something more than the actual experience. The potential, whether its realized or not is where you get a fervor of ideas before the realities on the table grind them away. To be fair, for most people, playing the game represents a fraction of the time they spend engaging with it. For a lot of people this potential entertains them for hundreds of hours between the handful of games they get a year. It's easy to look back on all the fun you had thinking about the game, even if the actual experience on the table wasn't quite as engaging.

I laugh a little every time i see this point brought up, i know i am not the "normal" 40K gamer but back in 3rd and part way through 4th when i was still single i would spend both Friday after work, usually take a nap in the car, then come back in to the store and play all day Saturday. i got hundreds of games of each edition 3rd-5th before 6th kind of killed things in my area. starting in 2008 i began running late night gaming at the FLGS so it has been an average of 12+ hours of gaming every Saturday for going on 15 years (in that time i think i have missed 3 days due to weather/sickness or other life things). and we still play a version of 5th with some house rules fixes, we still enjoy it and have built a nice community up around it.

In that way i can say it is still engaging and i am enthusiastic about it because it is not just something i rarely did "back in the day"

Last weekend i did two 2K games back to back and then helped out with another 2K game for somebody who was getting a refresher since he hasn't played any games in a long while due to work and family. then i played a game of classic battle tech. got there at the store at around 2pm, left the next morning about 4:30 am