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The D&D discussion is really off topic but part of the issue with magic in 3.x was that it was open to interpretation by virtue of being an RPG and therefore open to abuse. Nearly all of the uber-builds from the WotC CharOp forums were either creative combinations of classes/feats/items or outright dubious rules interpretations or using the rules specifically as written versus intent (which RAI is much more acceptable in what is basically a freeform RPG with loose rules than a wargame)

4th edition was more streamlined and got crap for feeling more like a tabletop MMO; there was a lot of focus on your party role (e.g. Tank/DPS/Healer) and less on customizing what you wanted to play, so certain archetypes or concepts couldn't be realized without playing a role you didn't like. Personally I liked 4th edition as much as 3.x, and from everything I've seen 5e has gone back to AD&D/OD&D style stuff.

In any event though an RPG isn't a fair comparison to a tabletop wargame because the wargame doesn't usually have a GM to arbitrate or set up a scenario (I know Rogue Trader did, but that's a long time ago. Outside of large map based campaigns a la Tony Bath and Don Featherstone, tabletop games don't tend to need or require a third party to determine what happens, so the rules need to be tighter to allow for a fairly balanced competition since ultimately the difference is that the RPG is a cooperative storytelling game, where while you might have the confrontational GM they are rare. A wargame is basically a duel with a winner and a loser.

 vipoid wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

As for "dlc", I prefer to have something like the looted wagon come out as a little extra thing. you don't have to buy the White dwarf, but someone who likes the looted wagon might still want it

You mean the same looted wagon they removed from the book, then sold back to their players?

You mean the same looted wagon that may not have been given any rules screwing over players who had taken the time to make their own just because it didn't have an official model so we're probably lucky GW even gave players that much attention?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Oh good, you can make sarcasm at a few simple spells I picked for an example, maybe we should go into the utility spells, like Expeditious retreat, Feather fall, Mage Hand, light, ghost sound, prestidigiation, dimension door, disguise self, dispel magic, invisibility, levitate, wall of fog, arcane gate, and more that can be used outside of combat as well as in combat without a ritual.

Are all of those in the 4e player's handbook?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

And yet you still have more customization in your build then the standard 3.5 fighters, whose feats of..Feats weren't exactly empowering. Every other thing was Stat Bonus, Mechanical bonus, even the Barbarian and other "Martials" bound down to.

Oh, I quite agree. Fighters weren't very good in 3.5 and, for the most part, lacked any interesting mechanics. Though, I have seen some pretty entertaining ones that used feats from a variety of sourcebooks.

That said, I think the martial classes in the Book of 9 Swords were pretty good and a lot more interesting.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

I suppose it's better for Wizards and them to be overpowered and have all the options at once then?

I just don't think it's a good idea to take away so much diversity from magic and turn it into endless blasting spells.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

I actually preferred the balance, I've had way to many games where I just ended up a caster sort so I wouldn't be overshadowed in every single event.

And, that's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But, don't assume that everyone feels the same way. Many people prefer options and imbalance to balance and uniformity. Or, hell, maybe different people just have different experiences when it comes to 3.5 and 4e.

e.g. In my 3.5 games it was rarely the casters who overshadowed the fighters. In fact, a lot of the most memorable moments involved fighters, rather than casters (Or, God forbid, teamwork).

Are all of those in the 4e player's handbook?


I just don't think it's a good idea to take away so much diversity from magic and turn it into endless blasting spells.

Yes and no, considering I just listed some of the Wizard Spells that aren't "blasty", all of them are in the Players Handbook 1.

That said, I think the martial classes in the Book of 9 Swords were pretty good and a lot more interesting.

I suppose that some would, I just remember people hating on it for "Weebaboo Fightin' Magic"

I'm probably a bit sensative to this, what with being told I'm not a DnD player despite..playing DnD, and even the makers of 5E constantly berating 4E players.

 Souleater wrote:
I haven't played 40K for a while but I hear a lot of talk about new codexes being 'bland': the loss of special characters, other options being slimmed down, etc

I think in part this is due to GW wanting to add back in certain options in separate mini-dexes.

But if Codexes have lost a lot of flavour (and I don't know if this is true) then could it be linked to unbound? What I mean is, have they reduced the rules available in an attempt to prevent unforseen, over-powered combinations?

The issue of bland codexes isn't about between codex balancing. The codexes are bland because there's such poor internal balance. Imagine a chess board, every piece has a purpose, and among great players a single pawn can be the difference between winning or losing. In 40k though, most armies have a small core of essential units and the rest of the codex is full of just fluffy/flavor units.

IG for example, my army, have excellent choices in HQ and Troops, with competitive heavy support units too. But time after time I keep realizing that I'm building lists with no elites and no fast attack. Units like ogryns, wyrdvanes, bane wolf, rough riders, etc. are in the codex for flavor but they don't substantially contribute to the army. There are lots of other units that are weak choices, often out performed by other choices in the codex.

The codexes are bland because they're built around a couple core units and then a bunch of filler units. In my perfect 40k world, any decent TAC list would need units from each slot, but in reality most armies lack the internal balance, to the point that armies with units from each slit are almost always derided as "fluffy lists."

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Yes and no, considering I just listed some of the Wizard Spells that aren't "blasty", all of them are in the Players Handbook 1.

I know now why I didn't remember most of the utility spells - because they're all sodding dailies.

Also, invisibility has more options when you can cast it on others and it has a reasonable duration. As it stands, in order for the subject to remain invisible, you have to run behind them to sustain the effect. And, since you'll still be visible, it does seem to defeat the point somewhat.

Likewise, I suspect Wall of Fog would be more useful if you didn't have to concentrate on sustaining the thing.

You're right, these spells do have out of combat uses - I just dislike the number of hoops you have to jump through to get them to work.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

I suppose that some would, I just remember people hating on it for "Weebaboo Fightin' Magic"

I thought it was quite well received, but I could be wrong.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

I'm probably a bit sensative to this, what with being told I'm not a DnD player despite..playing DnD, and even the makers of 5E constantly berating 4E players.

But then, it doesn't help when you go on counter-offensives and start attacking other game systems.

In any case, I'm not trying to attack you or your game, I'm just trying to explain why some people don't consider 4e to be D&D. I'm not saying they're right, I'm just trying to explain their possible reasoning.

 TheSilo wrote:

The issue of bland codexes isn't about between codex balancing. The codexes are bland because there's such poor internal balance. Imagine a chess board, every piece has a purpose, and among great players a single pawn can be the difference between winning or losing. In 40k though, most armies have a small core of essential units and the rest of the codex is full of just fluffy/flavor units.

IG for example, my army, have excellent choices in HQ and Troops, with competitive heavy support units too. But time after time I keep realizing that I'm building lists with no elites and no fast attack. Units like ogryns, wyrdvanes, bane wolf, rough riders, etc. are in the codex for flavor but they don't substantially contribute to the army. There are lots of other units that are weak choices, often out performed by other choices in the codex.

I definitely know what you mean with regard to IG lists. I use elites and FA choices, but only 1 choice from each (Storm Troopers and Armoured Sentinels).

I think what I really hate though is how expensive the character wargear is. Paying half of a character's base cost for a power fist seems counter-productive, and either the Death Mask is overcosted by 50% or there was a printing error that accidentally removed it's 3 other abilities. Also, I'm glad our melee weapon relic has the list interesting combination of abilities possible, which amounts to a poor-man's power axe (but more expensive, obviously).

I've just come back to 40k after a 15 year absence and having bought the ork codex to find there is another book i need to buy is quite disheartening especially when army books were bigger and cost £10 back in the day!

bertmac wrote:
I've just come back to 40k after a 15 year absence and having bought the ork codex to find there is another book i need to buy is quite disheartening especially when army books were bigger and cost £10 back in the day!

what other book do you have to buy to play orks? presuming you dont mean BRB

Formation one. The supplement that has rules for fortifications any codex for ally orks run nowadays, Once it was necrons, no idea what it is right now as no one plays orks here anymore and we had 0 new ork players when new codex came.

WayneTheGame wrote:
The D&D discussion is really off topic .

Indeed.

So no more of it please.

thank you.

Makumba wrote:
Formation one. The supplement that has rules for fortifications any codex for ally orks run nowadays, Once it was necrons, no idea what it is right now as no one plays orks here anymore and we had 0 new ork players when new codex came.

wait what? formations books? supplement for fortifications? you mean the 6th ed rulebook that has them in it.? or that you dont HAVE to have fortifications? infact i rarely even use an ADL these days. oh and orks HAVE to be run with allies hey? i doubt it.

My personal thoughts on unbound and the current state of play.

First, a bit of background so you can see where I'm coming from. I'm a very casual player of 40k and have played both 40k and WHFB since the early 90s. I've been in and out of both the GW end of the wargaming hobby and the overall hobby a number of times over the years and own thousands of dollars in GW product. I don't participate in tournaments, never use special characters and don't do a lot of modeling/converting. I'm a pretty horrid painter but all my toys are painted to my best level of ability (meager though it is) and generally build armies by buying units, painting them and then buying the next unit. I often buy a model because it looks nice rather than from a utility perspective on the tabletop and have no problem losing a game because I tried something off the wall when I build a list.

Ok, all of that said. I strongly believe that a game's rules should be tight and leave as little as possible up to interpretation; not because I'm against "forging a narrative" but because I believe it's easier to make exceptions to established rules than making loose rules tight. It would be easier for me to create a scenario with wonky exceptions to shooting or force org than try to play a regular game with incomprehensible rules. Unbound would be a good example of throwing the rules out the window to create scenarios for play if it weren't for the terrible condition of the regular-game rules.

GW has always had a problem with game rules (thus my on-again/off-again relationship with the company) but 40k is the most heavily played game in my area. I should say, used to be the most heavily played game in my area; it seems that X-Wing has taken the #1 spot in the local gaming club.

I do agree that army books are becoming more "bland". I don't believe the current state of blandness has much to do with unbound. I do believe that it is in part due to a realization at GW that their market-share is shrinking and one of the large, contributing factors is the state of the rules. Instead of just throwing the game out and starting over, they're rebuilding the army books and removing all of the "broken" exceptions to the usual rules. The net effect is that the resulting armies are becoming more balanced against each other, by and large, but more "bland".

Another factor is the Chapterhouse lawsuit; since they became a publicly traded company, GW has tried to maintain a stranglehold on what they believe is "their" IP. Yes, we all know that it's neurotic and a bit daft for a company to think they own sole rights to the use of roman numerals in tabletop wargaming....when there are companies making actual roman soldiers with roman numeral and use latin on the heraldry...be that as it may, GW's loss of so many of their claims in court has resulted in a sort of petulant attitude whereby any character or unit without a model is being removed from the army books. This coming from a company that used to offer tutorials on how to make a grav tank from a deodorant container. Loss of characters and units = more blandness and less..well, character in the armies.

Just a few of my thoughts. The sad thing is in how this board is so polarized; this thread is rife with people who disagree and instead of just having a rational discussion dismiss each other's opinions as being obtuse or whining. I suppose it'd make a shorter thread if people were to just say, "I understand your opinion but I disagree on X, Y, Z grounds." Mature discussion seems to be in short supply.

There are too many posts saying "Gamers are never satisfied." Its really not helping to stay in your neutral ambiguous happy-with-anything-fed-to-them position. There are tons of gaming communities that are satisfied and content.

GW should listen to their customers and stop abusing their loyal fanbase.

 Vigilant wrote:
There are tons of gaming communities that are satisfied and content.

I may be looking in the wrong places, but I haven't seen them.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Vigilant wrote:
There are tons of gaming communities that are satisfied and content.

I may be looking in the wrong places, but I haven't seen them.

I frequent the Privateer Press forums (you know, official forums for a game. What kind of silly idea is that?) and while there's a few complaints (generally about PVC plastic) it's respectful and not people yelling about getting ripped off or the company ignoring anything said as whining. In fact the last PVC plastic thread I recall had a PP staff member post saying that they are aware of issues and are looking at ways to improve it or alternative methods.

"Satisfied and content" implies no complaints at all which was more the thing I was point at with my post.

The fact that PP is able to respond quickly and directly to them is great, but let's not pretend that there is a utopian community where problems aren't raised and complaints are never uttered.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:

bertmac wrote:
I've just come back to 40k after a 15 year absence and having bought the ork codex to find there is another book i need to buy is quite disheartening especially when army books were bigger and cost £10 back in the day!

what other book do you have to buy to play orks? presuming you dont mean BRB

Red waagh? or ghazkull supplement not sure which but there are apparently a bunch of useful formations etc in there.
Don't get me wrong a special character turning up in white dwarf from time to time is fine but a codex that misses another books worth of special rules for an army is a piss take!

 ClockworkZion wrote:
"Satisfied and content" implies no complaints at all which was more the thing I was point at with my post.

The fact that PP is able to respond quickly and directly to them is great, but let's not pretend that there is a utopian community where problems aren't raised and complaints are never uttered.

I don't think satisfied and content means there are zero complaints. I'm not mathologist, but I'm fairly certain that'd be impossible to please everyone to their fullest.

Unless of course when you joined the game community you were initiated into a cult in which your life was monitored constantly and you were told to never speak ill of the game, under penalty of death or worse...melting down your army.

There, however, plenty of games where the general feeling is one of satisfaction and general content. No game is without issues or unhappy players over some issue or another, but in more content communities, the complaints are fewer and less severe in their call for change.

I know that on the Spartan Games community forum, the Firestorm Armada section is pretty pleased with the game. We had some issues over one particular model, but if that's the worse I can say about the game, I think its doing pretty well in terms of keeping people happy.

 Blacksails wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
"Satisfied and content" implies no complaints at all which was more the thing I was point at with my post.

The fact that PP is able to respond quickly and directly to them is great, but let's not pretend that there is a utopian community where problems aren't raised and complaints are never uttered.

I don't think satisfied and content means there are zero complaints. I'm not mathologist, but I'm fairly certain that'd be impossible to please everyone to their fullest.

Unless of course when you joined the game community you were initiated into a cult in which your life was monitored constantly and you were told to never speak ill of the game, under penalty of death or worse...melting down your army.

There, however, plenty of games where the general feeling is one of satisfaction and general content. No game is without issues or unhappy players over some issue or another, but in more content communities, the complaints are fewer and less severe in their call for change.

I know that on the Spartan Games community forum, the Firestorm Armada section is pretty pleased with the game. We had some issues over one particular model, but if that's the worse I can say about the game, I think its doing pretty well in terms of keeping people happy.

And then you have GW which is basically divided into haters and fanboys who are at constant odds between wanting a balanced game and stating the game is fine so shut up and leave if you don't like it...

And as some people seem to think, it's just a handful of internet trolls whining everywhere, can't be anything serious because people have been saying GW will go bankrupt any day now for the past 25 years, and they're still around so they must be doing things right. And don't get me started with the argument that no other game compares to 40k based on a list of 40k's own criteria.

 Blacksails wrote:
Unless of course when you joined the game community you were initiated into a cult in which your life was monitored constantly and you were told to never speak ill of the game, under penalty of death or worse...melting down your army.

That won't happen until Disney buys WotC.