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silent25 wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

I also think 8th is really a fun children's game. Don't have to worry about tactics when you can just roll a few dice that decide the whole game. The new spell and movement rules and infantry deathstars make the game easy-peasy since you don't have to use your brain.

8th edition is a turd, and you can polish it all you want and spray as much perfume on it as you please and dress it up in pretty bows... but it's still just a sad, sad lump of fecal matter. That may just be your sort of thing, though, so who am I to judge?

Sorry, have to respond to this post as it illustrates the most ignorant view of 8th that was espoused by people in the first months of release. The people who would always say the game has no tactics were unable to adapt. It isn't that there aren't any tactics anymore, it's that your old tactics don't work anymore. The tactics changed. Bait and flee units were replaced by sacrificial units. Death stars were defeated by simply fleeing. They didn't have the units to ever catch those fleeing units.

Only reason I say this is because I heard the exact same arguments from a local Lizardman player. Problem he demonstrated he would call something childish and stupid because it wasn't something he was use to dealing with. When the 7th ed LM book came out, he claimed GW had nerfed LM to the ground and had become a bottom tier book. It wasn't because the book was weak, it was because his old run and gun skink army was not longer viable. The game changed and he didn't want to adapt to the changes.

Is the edition perfect? No, far from it. But as everyone has pointed out, every edition has had problems. People are just looking at the earlier ones with rose color glasses.

As for everyone who claimed 6th was the paragon of army balance, may I remind of this little broken bundle of joy:


Are we forgetting the Von Carstein army? First turn charging slayer armies? The Sea Guard army that could open fire on one unit and delete it before the game started? There was some pretty broken stuff in there.

@Manchu, I thought WarmarHordes was the popular alternative to WHFB?

Supplements are hardly game breaking. The campaign lists were written as fluff armies, much like the old appendix lists in the back of books.

 Aerethan wrote:


Supplements are hardly game breaking. The campaign lists were written as fluff armies, much like the old appendix lists in the back of books.

Except these were tournament legal and didn't need your opponents permission unlike the appendix armies. These saw general play.

silent25 wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:


Supplements are hardly game breaking. The campaign lists were written as fluff armies, much like the old appendix lists in the back of books.

Except these were tournament legal and didn't need your opponents permission unlike the appendix armies. These saw general play.

For all of 1 year before 7th edition came out. And supplements don't dictate friendly games, which outnumber tourneys by a great deal.

 cincydooley wrote:
Ahh. There's the fanboy word tossed out. Well played sir. That definitely makes your position a stronger one. Kudos to you on that brilliant maneuver.

Well, I'm also a fanboy I enjoy 40k 6th more than any 40k since 2nd, and I love Epic Space Marine, Mordheim, and Space Hulk. And obviously WHFB 6th. GW has made some excellent games!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

silent25 wrote:

Sorry, have to respond to this post as it illustrates the most ignorant view of 8th that was espoused by people in the first months of release. The people who would always say the game has no tactics were unable to adapt. It isn't that there aren't any tactics anymore, it's that your old tactics don't work anymore. The tactics changed. Bait and flee units were replaced by sacrificial units. Death stars were defeated by simply fleeing. They didn't have the units to ever catch those fleeing units.

Is the edition perfect? No, far from it. But as everyone has pointed out, every edition has had problems. People are just looking at the earlier ones with rose color glasses.

Okay, I agree with you to some extent. But I agree in that the rules absolutely did change and required a totally different set of tactics. But the game changed from a semblance of real world tactical application, to gaming the system. The system became another opponent. It's hard to explain... let me go about it a different way. 8th, moreso than any other edition, wins or loses you the game at the army list construction level. 6th, more than any other edition aside from 3rd (but I have little experience with 3rd, so that may be wrong), allowed entirely flully non-tournament armies to actually be able to compete, because you weren't also fighting the ruleset.

I played 8th and watched plenty of 8th games. In every single one, a few lucky rolls from magic spells or absurd charges (failed on two 1's or stupid lucky on two 6's) were the turning points in the game. 6th didn't have the overwhelming reliance on a few lucky rolls; there were certainly lucky rolls but they were often less meaningful than 8th.

And I certainly understand rose-colored glasses, which is why I can freely admit that 40k 6th is better than 2nd, despite starting with 2nd. (everyone has fondness for the edition they started in). I started Warhammer in 4th in the mid 90's, and man, after all these years and years of Warhammer, 6th is just by far the best. Anecdotally, I never met a single person who didn't enjoy 6th; yet I've met many people who despise 8th.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, going back and re-reading my posts, I believe I did come across as harsh and combative to cincydooley, at which point I would like to publicly apologize. I'm often the target of derision because I do like Kings of War from the Warhammer community at large, so I tend to be very defensive. Which honestly is pretty absurd, we're all just playing with toy soldiers with different rulesets. But yeah, sorry for attacking you

 RiTides wrote:
7th ed Daemons have got to be the most unbalanced book GW has ever put out

When I first went to the Los Angeles Battle Bunker, which is the largest collection of WHFB I saw in a non-tournament (and thus, presumably not cut-throat) it was 7th edition. The most common army was Daemons. I only ever ONCE saw Ogres and it was this sad little kid.

Many of the gripes I've heard post new army book and post new BRB have been about: "my $1000 100-hour army now sucks." Or isn't as good. In every game that has ever existed people gripe about nerfs to "their" team. No matter much much that team needed it. I'm still boggled by the WoC players who can't get over the very needed Marauder nerf who got in return a fantastic book. But all they see is those hours painting, wasted.

I was just walking home from mailing an envelope and a guy drove past in his 1920s car (I'm in Los Angeles, people love their cars here). It took me a moment to cross the street and I almost choked on the exhaust fumes. It was that stupid car. Yeah, it looks cool, but it's slow, pollutes, get horrible mileage, has no amenities, and is basically worse in every way than a new model KIA while costing 50 times as much. Nostalgia is cool and all, but there's a reason we update.

I've been playing warhammer since 5th ed consistantly. Every edition has changes, but for the msot part, they have been slight changes and normally for the good. 8th edition seemed like a revamp of the system as a whole. i honestly feel that it's very underhanded of GW to revamp as system that emphasised variety (Most people I know owned 1 of every unit at a minimum, maybe 2-3 of some troops) to a new system focused on large blocks of infantry, which few armies (skaven, orcs, and undead) ran in 7th edition. I agree with many posts. yes 8th ed still has tactics, but honestly, they are far fewer and farther between the 6/7th editions. I also find it very sad to watch games, with maybe 4-6 units per side. I love the era where each side would look like a battlefield, with 10+ units lined up in a battle like. Skirmishers and Fast Cav harassing the flanks and falling back at different points. Remember the days when artillery was inaccurate, and prone to explode? Remember when a unit of 10 archers was soemthing you had to deal with because they were a real threat? Who cares about S3 bow shots in 8th? The common archer (I real weapon in dark age warfare) has become a laughing stock. And it makes me sad.

But there are a lot of things I enjoy about 8th ed. I think 8th ed has the best magic system since 5th and it's Colleges of magic. (Just need to balance some of the spells) 8th ed did a great job centralizing the universal special rules, making things a lot easier. I really like the way they handle the charges, but the random distances take a lot away from the game for me. Failing 7" charges, and having the game won or lost on the random movement is a bit disheartening.

Would I go back to 7th if they re-released it? Possibly. Would I like them to Make a new edition taking the best things of 7th and the best of 8th and put them together? Yes!

6th/7th had the most diversity in army builds, too.

You had mixed force low quality armies, like Empire and Orcs and Goblins.
Mixed force elite armies like Dark and High elves.
Brutal but slow close combat from Hordes of Chaos.
All skirmishing low leadership close combat from Beasts of Chaos.
Nippy, MSU shooty mobile forces with Skinks and Wood Elves.
True hordes like Goblins and Skaven, often with wacky elements.
Cavalry heavy with Brets and various cavalry themed sub lists.
Infantry and Warmachines with Dwarves.
All Monsters with Ogres.
And of course, Undead being their usual undead selves.

It was a VERY diverse edition. There's still the option for diversity, but for example the all skirmishing idea is pretty much gone these days, most armies boil down to similar archetypes (so, big blocks of whatever's cheap, hammer units and stompy monsters, monstrous cavarly or monstrous infantry). There's a few mould breakers with the likes of Ogre Kingdoms and so on, but many other builds have been rendered ineffective and armies seem to have become very samey.

That's just my perspective though. I'm sure someone can counter my argument. I was put off 8th by the over powered magic phase and the over simplistic nature of Steadfast. I prefer flanking to mean something in my big block games.

No interest in playing that again. I like infantry to be able to do something. I like step up. I like the new magic rules. Cavalry and skirmishers are still valuable in 8th they just aren't dominating.

I Never left 7th, 6th was my favourite, but 7th wasn't that much of a change. 8th is stupid. The game has gone from a beer and pretzels game with a decent amount of skill involved which you could have a fun evening playing to a game to 8th, which I have played a few times which is basically a game where you roll a bunch if die and then see who wins, I hate the random aspects of it, a wargame should not be that random. 8th has the feeling it's a game for little children, not a half serious wargame.

yes the army books in 7th were a off, but rather than complain and spend more money on 8th, me and me friends just tweaked the books until we were happy with a balance and stuck with that. We found that when 8th came out, the bottom dropped out the WHFB scene and it just hasn't come back.

The whole 8th edition seems to me and my friends at least to be a massive advertisement to buy more models. 'you can get more models on the table now!' said the rep, just as he removed 10 off the table due to magic wiping them out. So yes, you can put more models on the table, but you may as well take them off again. And while 7th was HeroHammer, 8th is MagicHammer x3 .

I was really anticipating 8th to sort all the issues of OP characters and armies and all the little niggly bits, but it never happened, instead I was left with a childs die rolling game with lots and lots of models

:(

The bottom dropping out of the scene may be attributed to the price rise and finecast, along with 8th itself.

People look at the pole results. Everyone I have meet in person thinks 8th is better. Also 8th is enjoyable even if it does have some rather egregious warts.

If you think this game is push models roll dice. Then you aren't playing 40k 6th edition right that is all it is.

Started in the waning years of 5th. Played most of my days in 6th. After a year of 7th, I decided to take a sabbatical since I really wasn't finding the game as enjoyable as I once was (probably a good thing because if I had went to tournaments outside my area during the 'era of darkness' with shadestars, Daemons, and all that other nonsense then Ebay would have sounded oh so sweeter to cash out). 8th edition got me back in the game because it just felt like good ol' fun once again.

Is it flawed? Yes. I never agreed with basic cannons now doing a D6 MW. Steadfast needs tweaking. Magic needs tweaking. It would be nice if they can balance combat characters with massive units. But overall, I'm having fun.

Most of the old players from Fantasy have moved on in my area due probably more to one reason or another besides the edition changes. I tried to get it restarted again in my area with 8th. People did seem to be having fun just throwing dice everywhere, smashing units at each other just to see what happened and having an equal playing field with magic against each other. This may have also been added to the fact that a number of them were somewhat disillusioned with the 40k Grey Knights - Necrons era that was dominating the scene and just dragging others down.

You could see the light in their eyes where not half the armies on the field are Space Marines. The wonder and merriment of treading into unknown grounds where one does not know what is going to happen by breaking down everything into soulless calculations of statistics or netlisting so that everything is optimized. The fact that there was not only guys on foot, but all sorts of different types from large Ogres to destructive warmachines to a freaking monster coming down on your hapless units just felt like their was loads of variety to play with. It felt like the old days when a number of us were crowded around a dinner table at a friends house and just playing just to play, laughing when you call upon the Gods of Chaos for an extra D3 to your stats and get your head asploded instead.

However, eventhough I was happy to put my extras of OnG, Dwarves, Ogres and proxies from starter sets on the field just for people to learn and have fun, when it came down to if they would get in the game - it just wasn't easy for them to justify buying into a massive undertaking with ten-man core boxes for troops along with their own investment into 40k.

The thing that I find most sad about it is that I have to tell them "Listen, I understand this is a huge investment if you want to really play this game, but I will do whatever I can to help you out." Whether it is looking for deals on ebay/people I know, handing out extra movement trays from the many that I have acquired, buying a rulebook and leaving it at the store as a copy for everybody to use, I was doing what I could to get some form of a community going.

But alas, GW's excessive price demand wins out again. A game that craves an epic battle scene with massive armies but is apparently not met with any support in getting into the game is doomed to hobble along in my area. I don't believe 8th edition by its ruleset is destroying the game though it began weeding out the powergamers (good), it is the prices and its going to always be the prices. And since the gaming area is predominately 40k, you are in a position where you have to pick one or the other. It's just the way its going to be.

But hey, I still have some friends that still have their armies and we get together every now and then just to crowd around the dinner table. It's the only thing I have left for this game. I am glad that these books are getting balanced, churned out more, and thank the developers profusely. Maybe one day GW will put a big foot forward and begin to fit the game more accordingly to people's wallets. But in the meantime, just keep rolling on I guess.

 captain collius wrote:
People look at the pole results. Everyone I have meet in person thinks 8th is better.

90% of the people I have asked reckon 8th is worse.

Meaningless really.

I just looked at the results of the same poll on the forum in your signature and it was 78% against. But on the first page, not one person had played the game and they were saying it was worse.

I was at a pub(!) today. Yeah, when your famous brits retire, they come to us. And an elderly man came in asking for a phone book. The bartender and I exchanged looks. What? Do they even still have those? He left. She told me later that he was the same guy who refused to get a new phone and said his old flip top was fine. But he's scrounging around pubs for phone books so he can look up hardware stores...

tl;dr stuff changes and some people are going to drag their feet and say it's worse no matter what. I'm sure I'll do it some day too.

DukeRustfield wrote:
I just looked at the results of the same poll on the forum in your signature and it was 78% against. But on the first page, not one person had played the game and they were saying it was worse.
.

That is not everybody I have asked, although the club was pretty clear they thought it wasn't a great edition. Of those "not one person had played", one of them is a UK masters winner under 8th edition, so people have played the game but decided to move elsewhere.

8th is what got me into fantasy more. Before that I had no interest due to how the previous edition played. So if it went back towards 7th I would likely take a break till things change and try 40k again.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
People look at the pole results. Everyone I have meet in person thinks 8th is better.

90% of the people I have asked reckon 8th is worse.

Meaningless really.

Great this is an actual poll with actual result rather than an anecdotal story. Which is actually meaningless.

 captain collius wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
People look at the pole results. Everyone I have meet in person thinks 8th is better.

90% of the people I have asked reckon 8th is worse.

Meaningless really.

Great this is an actual poll with actual result rather than an anecdotal story. Which is actually meaningless.

I just looked at the results of the same poll on the forum in your signature and it was 78% against.

Actual data is not meaningless though.

8th has plenty of MAJOR problems. 7th had a few, and 6th had very few MAJOR problems. Add to that, armies having their unique character builds nerfed into the ground, by taking 30-50 magic items per army down to 10. Now every army has access to crap overpriced BRB items.

 Aerethan wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
People look at the pole results. Everyone I have meet in person thinks 8th is better.

90% of the people I have asked reckon 8th is worse.

Meaningless really.

Great this is an actual poll with actual result rather than an anecdotal story. Which is actually meaningless.

I just looked at the results of the same poll on the forum in your signature and it was 78% against.

Actual data is not meaningless though.

8th has plenty of MAJOR problems. 7th had a few, and 6th had very few MAJOR problems. Add to that, armies having their unique character builds nerfed into the ground, by taking 30-50 magic items per army down to 10. Now every army has access to crap overpriced BRB items.

Yeah

First of all 8th has problems I don't doubt this.

Also as to the magical items while I miss them they created some broken combos just look at how powerful Lizardmen, Skaven and Dark Elves are.

My anecdotal experience mirrors the poll. Vocal detractors who rant, and twice as many that just enjoy themselves and the game.

editing to add:
and given the weight of the poll, it seems to be even better.

 kirsanth wrote:
My anecdotal experience mirrors the poll. Vocal detractors who rant, and twice as many that just enjoy themselves and the game.

editing to add:
and given the weight of the poll, it seems to be even better.

Unhappy players speak louder online!

I'm building up to a scenario led game of 8th soon - revenge of the doomlord from the 4th edition Undead army book.

As far as mechanics go, what has been everyone's favorite mechanics for Warhammer? Either ones that no longer exist or ones that are new with 8th edition or ones that have never left the game.

Part of my initial question revolved around a "living" edition of the game, so while 7th was the basis initially, I'd be curious to have people say what their favorite mechanics are regardless of what edition they're from.

Maybe by compiling a list of them we could get a better idea of what people think makes the game work best.

I was just thinking about how 5th edition was considered Herohammer, but what if you included the step-up and fight in two ranks rules? Would that alone help that edition to be more balanced?

Not that it'll ever happen, but I'm just curious what people think and what people would like to see in a "living" edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, based on our small sample, if we just look at the two questions:

Yes, 8th turned me off the game
No, 8th is better

While twice as many people prefer 8th to those who were turned off the game, that is still a lot of people who used to play, but do not any longer due to 8th.

To be honest I may have gone on to play 8th if GW didn't keep putting up the prices and doing stupid things such as making core units 30 strong (ish) and then putting out boxes of 10 models for £20 (ish) The price of the rulebook was waay to much. The whole edition smelt of 1 big marketing ploy to sell more models, yes you can have 3 units of 30 models, but one or good spells and you may as well take 60 of them back off the table kind of thing.

All this was what turned us off the game, we were already growing disillusioned with the company by the end of 7th. We are happy with 7th so we voted not to carry on and stay with 7th. There are 5 of us in the group, and only 1 of us wanted to go on to 8th

Interesting how people call 8th "little's children" game. I left 7th at the time the LM book was released. I was already tired of the army books which made any competitive game a one sided festival if you happened to pick the wrong book (daemons was the bigges fethed up army book i had ever read/played against).
Second, while i am not a fan of steadfast in its current iteration, it serves a good purpose, which didn't exist on 7th, and it was the cavalry lists just winning depending on who got the charge. Those were the days, huh ? So much for tactical challenge. I really wonder how many people had actually tried 8th, instead of playing a few games, not getting used to the new edition being different, and just called it random.

Problems with 8th as many had pointed out :

- BRB and old books (skaven cough cough) 6th spells (i may add, no spell should give/take away 1d3 S/T stat, it's just too much)
- Not a real way to negate steadfast except if you bring more ranks. I believe this could be easilly fixed with flank charges of X amount of models/ranks being able to break steadfast.

Aside that, i actually came back after stopping on 7th, i pestered about 8th and "how random it is", to end up enjoying the game way more than i did on 7th and realizing most of the problems of the game, was just fearmongering.

Total blasphemy: I love TLoS and I love pre-measuring and random charges.

There, I said it, and I feel good about it.

I played 40k for ages starting back in Rogue Trader and when TLoS came out it was a breath of fresh air and also removed a couple pages of rules from the ruleset. When 8th dropped and it had pre-measuring any time it made things so relaxed and fun (I didn't have to hold back on the tape measure until I'd decided everything) that I hoped 40k would go the same way.

In the end though, if they got rid of both of those things in 9th I would still play 9th because I don't want to try to find or build up a community of people who are playing some old edition. I love meeting new people through pickup games and I don't want to have to keep two or more rulesets in mind. So I'm always playing the latest version of whatever game I want to play.

Just one gamer's opinion.

And one other weird thing: I don't see anything like what some people are complaining about on this thread. Yeah, I see some large blocks of infantry but only in the hands of newbs whose eyes light up when they read the horde rule and think everything has to be like that. In my area, the people who say the flexibility of more units between 10 and 25 strong that can be used in combo charges is better than a few big blocks are turning out to be right. The horders are losing games to the people who master the movement phase and if you don't have diverters and something fast and something that shoots people will find the holes in your list and you're done. The only thing I expect in every list is a dispel scroll, and I feel like the different armies play VERY differently.

My biggest complaint about variety is that I never see Wood Elves, Beastmen, or Bretonnians in my area. And I can't afford to build another army just to be the guy playing Beastmen.