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 the_Armyman wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
If you cannot fathom the huge effects on gameplay that a subtle difference in rules has, then please stay in the kiddie pool of 40k and let the adults enjoy 30k. I know you might have difficulty understanding it, but you dont actually need hugely different factions to have hige differences in gameplay. Hell, most wargames have pretty much identical statlines across factions, like flames of war...

See, the condescension is unnecessary. You can claim you play a different game, but you don't. Last time I checked, you still use the same rulebook as us "kiddies" use in 40K. It's sorta odd thinking that someone claims the high ground just because their man-dollies cost more than mine. To the vast majority of humans who don't participate in our hobby, that just makes you more of a fool, amirite?

The core rules have a lot in common, yes, but they actually arent entirely identical, and many of the USRs are actually different, even when using the same name. In any case, it is and always has been the army lists that made the game, the 30k ones are a cut above the 40k ones. Also, considering that my only 30k purchases to date have been copies of betrayal at calth, my man dollies actually probably cost less than yours did.

Also in case there is any confusion, as far as 40k is concerned I was not (past tense because I quit the game some time ago) a marine player. I flirted with the idea, but my factions were Tau, Necrons, Tyranids, Eldar, Dark eldar, and Daemons in that order.

The core rules are the same...pretty simple that. We both use the 7th Edition BRB since we are the same game....

Some USRs are different, I'll give you that.

30k armies are only 'a cut above the rest' when you get higher than 2k points. At the normal 1850 points they are definitely not. I play 30k Night Lords and will freely admit it. Units/Upgrades/Fancy Toys/LoWs...all pretty hard to get or achieve below 2k (especially since LoWs can't be taken then...and then have to be less than 25%).

We have way different 'chapter tactics' called Rites of War. Makes each Legion play totally different than the others. And considering most things in this game are T3/T4...why are we splitting hairs?

And 30k isn't new...........been around for awhile...

Just to throw in - I like the history aspect of it. The battles feel more like they matter, even though I know how they play out in the end (Spoiler: the Battle of Terra doesn't go well). Endless and constant war gets boring because the motivations of chaos are "create chaos" and the Imperium is "defeat chaos", rather than something more specific I can imagine key battles around. The Black Crusades hit on this, but when was the last time those were discussed/developed.

Personally, 30k is a struggle. Half the legions decided they hated their Emperor enough to bring him down, and the big players are out and swinging, with goals and motivations. Everything is more grand because they have a goal in mind. I don;t know, 40k has become monotonous.

BUT i agree with the OP; they give up the grimdark/hopeless aesthetic for a tragic/dramatic one. I personally like it more.

Also my two cents is that Xenos in 30k ruin that theme. They don't contribute to the tragedy, fluff wise. Rules wise, I cant wait to test my Iron Warrior wall on 1000 Ork Boyz...

Edited for internet speak

Is it worth pointing out to the people mixing 30k with 40k armies that 30k's scoring is fundamentally different than 40k? I don't have a problem with a 30k army facing off against an ork army, but if literally every model in the ork army scored and the troops hand objective secured while the 30k army, only troops scored, everything else could only contest, including dedicated transport chosen for troops, even with orks less than stellar book, it's not a fair fight.

IIRC all models with Implacable Advance gain Objective Secured if you're playing a 30k army in a 40k game.

But yeah, generally 30k armies are weaker in 40k games <2000pts

 Warzoner wrote:
Hi people. So recently I came uppon a realization : most players around me seem to like 30k, but I seem to strongly dislike it. Maybe it's the fact that the CSM don't look like a bunch of warped chaos fiend in power armour. Maybe it's because it seems like an all marine vs marine game (I'm a proud defender of Xenos political correctness). Maybe it's the fluff: I've always felt that 30k was more like a space opera/ drama / greek tragedy than a grimdark setting.

What's your opinion on 30k ?

The pros for 30k:

Very well balanced internally.

Very good at allowing internal diversity ad nauseum (every single SM Legion can play every SM tactic effectively [assault, mid-range, long-range, etc])

Wonderful character development for the factions (every Legion covered so far has more attention and effort put into it than some 40k Codices) so it feels like you're actually playing your army.

Excellent independent units for each army that have enough flavor to be different without completely overwhelming the others (the special terminators, etc).

The cons for 30k:

The diversity is superficial. A few different special rules, a few different units, a different color scheme and a different set of bitz used to convert your army. Yes, the game is diverse, but you're still playing an army of T4, 3+ armor warriors with str 4, ap5 bolters. The Knights, Adeptus Mechanicus and Auxilia are significantly diverse armies, but compared to the 18 Legions as separate factions then the outliers are outnumbered 1-6. In terms of popularity the Legions outweigh the Knights, AM and Auxilia fans manifold.

From a modelling perspective 30k is for a degree of conversion, sculpting, and painting that goes above and beyond basic 40k table-top quality. This may be considered a pro for some (I would personally consider it a pro but list it as a con for my next point).

From a price perspective 30k is to 40k what 40k is to real-time strategy games. It is the next tier above 40k in terms of availability, quality, and skill requirement. This makes the game almost intrinsically elitist to an outsider, creating an atmosphere of a "clique within a clique." It's as if someone went to a dozen museums, bought their most prized possessions (which were the capstone of an exhibit) and shoved those possessions into one uber museum which only the wealthy or influencial can afford to enter and then found an even bigger capstone for that exhibit. 30k combines all of Forgeworld's various vehicles, units, and artillery into a cohesive army. The equipment and capability of Forgeworld's models were always a tier above 40k and thus were a sparse but significant capstone to an army. Suddenly you have an entire army made-up of capstones, with an even bigger uber-capstone on top: the Primarchs. It's like Escalation all over again. The issue is not that the game is unbalanced. The issue is that the game is hard to swallow (not just because the soldiers are made of resin ) from a gamer's perspective.

From a painting perspective 30k is very limited. The color-schemes of the various Legions are extremely well-known, heavily established in lore, and are meant to be instantly recognizeable to the extent that if your army doesn't appear in a classic 30k color-scheme (once again, Knights, AM and Auxilia as the exceptions), you'll be criticized perhaps silently or vocally. I saw a chap on BnC get repeatedly told not to paint his 30k Thousand Sons blue. He says that it's what brought him to playing Thousand Sons in the first place, his love of the color scheme. The criticisms were repeated and he eventually gave in. I know this is anecdotal, but it represents a very real problem. How can I paint my Alpha Legion to look different from yours other than using a slightly different shade of blue or green?

TLR. Pros: lots of internal balance, diversity, and interesting interactions.

Cons: it's a clique within a clique and is presented as an even more elitist game than Warhammer 40k (crucial point: appearance versus reality).

EDIT: My point here is to argue why the game is having trouble sticking to some players. I have trouble getting into it despite being pressured by my immediate community to do so.

The good part of the Alpha Legion, is the different shades of blue are allowed. Who knows what they're up to, who's command they're under, that influences the heraldry within the heraldy, so my AL can be greener than yours but still AL.

As can many of the legions, the scope for changing up the heraldry is only limited by what nonsense fluff you can come up with to give you remit to paint them non standard, fighting against such an alien, wearing this mark due to serving as part of somepersons campaign. Being involved in such a battle, etc etc ad nauseum.

For instance I'm going to be painting my RG like the diagonal alt colourscheme for the black legion (obviously more Raven Guardy). My Alpha's are going slightly bronzed along with the mismatching of tourquise that I mix as I got Armillus Dynat recently and his thing is adding a bit of bronze to places.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The two of you realize that the OP's assertion, which Rowboat was addressing, is that the game is "all Marines all the time", yes? So with that being the OP's assertion, pointing out an inequality in the Xenos-Marine ratio literally does not contradict or even address Rowboat's argument at all. "Diversity" exists in the game- whether it's enough diversity or not is an entirely separately matter, but the fact remains that to say "there's only Marine factions in 40K!" is an objectively false statement.

Please don't make strawmans, it brings down the quality of the entire board.

You do realize you just made a straw man argument, right? Or did you actually assume he literally meant non Marine armies were not an option? If so, you pretty clearly misread the context of the statement. If it helps, what he was implying was that Marine on Marine is so prevelant that it might as well be a game entirely lacking in other options due to the inbuilt lack of diversity.

Hearing some of these comments makes me think of explaining the differences with cars, guns, handy man stuff - you eventually get that response that attempts to generalize it, or reduce things beyond simplification.

For example, the common theme with such a question sounds like: -insert sharp sigh- 'isn't it just the same as all the others??'

For the others stating the issue with a lack of diversity. Have you ever heard of too much diversity? Have you ever thought that keeping it simple has its own charm/convenience?

The streamlined feeling of 30k is a good thing.

 ServiceGames wrote:
Xenos were a large part of 30K as a whole. Some of them we haven't seen yet I don't think (waiting on a full Megarachnids army to show up).

The 30K Universe is set up predominantly around Space Marines fighting humans who don't want to conform to the emperor's ways. So, the legions just go out and kill all of them and bring the planet into compliance.

All that said, yes, right now, 30K is just a Space Marine vs. Space Marine game, but it's only a very, very small sample (including all of the FW models + Betrayal at Calth). If BaC sells well and people start wanting to play 30K a good bit, I'm expecting to see the Horus Heresy tabletop rulebooks showing up under GW's logo and being sold on GW's website and at GW shops. And, I'm pretty sure they won't limit it just to space marines. I have a feeling they are going to bring out all the Xenos that were encountered during the time of the Horus Heresy as well.

SG

Now this is what I'm waiting for. The universe of 30K was full of nameless xenos that ate ripe for exterminatis. I'd be a cannon breaker anyway. It's my game and I'm playing the way I want. Fun is the key and I will use what ever I want. Just my my way.

 Tamwulf wrote:
I like that 30K is a tragedy. It's the time of Legends striding through the galaxy and grinding all opposition under foot, and just on the eve of Ultimate Victory, treachery at Isstvan. The once great Empire of Humanity ripped apart by civil war. You get to see the roots of 40K and where the Space Marine Chapters came from. Pretty exciting stuff to me!

I'd just like to point out that they weren't even close to Ultimate Victory. With pretty much every war mentioned against Xenos or Humans in the HH series taking at least a year, you would need, at a minimum, 555,555 years in order to conquer every star in the entire Milky Way galaxy (this is assuming that there are 100 Expeditionary Fleets for each Legion, and it's going off of the low-end of estimates, 100 billion, rather than 400 billion, at the high end). 200 years is only enough time to conquer 360,000 Solar Systems (and this is assuming that no war takes longer than a year), going off of my estimate of a total of 1800 Expeditionary Fleets. Considering the fact that the IoM is only estimated at owning a million planets, galaxy-wide, that would mean that 740,000 planets were conquered during the Forging (the period of time in which Humanity actually became the dominant force in the Galaxy), which was a period of 3000(?) years or so, maybe 2k years. Regardless, 200 years isn't even close to sufficient time.

 master of ordinance wrote:
TLDR, there is waayyyy toomuch Marine pr0n within 30K

At this point there's just so much more variation with the marines than in the whole Eldar lineup. (Oh boy. More under-detailed pointy headed infantry and titans, and more goofy looking vehicles. Joy.)
And maybe it's me but all of it is succinct.
Like the mini-Dreadnought sized Demonic Gal Vorbak (Some of the best infantry models ever in my opinion), to the goddamn laughing mad Cataphractii armored Red Butchers. Two very distinct looks.
Vehicles too.
Compare the beefy beauty of a gunship that is the Fire Raptor to a Vendetta.
Or the sexy ass tanks of Eldar tears whose name escapes me.

As long as the porn is diverse, and alluring who cares?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
I like that 30K is a tragedy. It's the time of Legends striding through the galaxy and grinding all opposition under foot, and just on the eve of Ultimate Victory, treachery at Isstvan. The once great Empire of Humanity ripped apart by civil war. You get to see the roots of 40K and where the Space Marine Chapters came from. Pretty exciting stuff to me!

I'd just like to point out that they weren't even close to Ultimate Victory. With pretty much every war mentioned against Xenos or Humans in the HH series taking at least a year, you would need, at a minimum, 555,555 years in order to conquer every star in the entire Milky Way galaxy (this is assuming that there are 100 Expeditionary Fleets for each Legion, and it's going off of the low-end of estimates, 100 billion, rather than 400 billion, at the high end). 200 years is only enough time to conquer 360,000 Solar Systems (and this is assuming that no war takes longer than a year), going off of my estimate of a total of 1800 Expeditionary Fleets. Considering the fact that the IoM is only estimated at owning a million planets, galaxy-wide, that would mean that 740,000 planets were conquered during the Forging (the period of time in which Humanity actually became the dominant force in the Galaxy), which was a period of 3000(?) years or so, maybe 2k years. Regardless, 200 years isn't even close to sufficient time.

Dude very few habitable planets actually have developed life, and almost none of that developed life stands a snowballs chance in hell against the 8ft supermen with grenade launching assault rifles.
It may have been another 1000 years at most.

Okay. See. I've read a lot of the arguments here admittedly not all of them so if I have missed something that somebody said here that mirrors my own comment well I apologize.

One thing that a lot of people seem to miss is that there is a big big difference between the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, yes the Horus Heresy is a great deal about marine vs marine brother vs brother and so on. Yes there is diversity through the 18 different legions that do play as differently or similarly as you want them to, as well as the Mechanicum, Solar Auxillera, Knights, Titan Legions, militias, and now even demons. I personally I've even seen people starting to use the Imperial Guard as the regular standing Imperial Army and it's worked out rather well.

Then we take a few steps back to the Great Crusade, now while there are xenos races that appear in their time throughout the Horus Heresy, the great bulk of them were encountered throughout the Great Crusade itself. You saw large encounters between Eldar, Orks, "new" races like the Megarachnids and the Interex and so on. And this is where in my opinion 30k and 40k meet, it gives you the chance to pull out all of the 40k races and slap them straight into a 30k fight with a little imagination and a little storytelling they all tend to fit perfectly.

Some examples that we come up with all really as follows.

Orks.. they're Orks.. no explanation needed.. Ullanor is a good campaign to follow if you have a lot of ork players though.

Eldar and Dark Eldar (cus yes The dark Eldar were around.. mostly) Random encounters. Their technology hasn't changed much since the Great Crusade til "now" and they work really well if you follow the Age of Darkness Force org.

Tau do a little research and you can find places to wiggle them in if you really want, for example a few months back while in a Great Crusade campaign game we had our Tau player from the 40k group play as the Interex. Which to us seemed like a perfect fit. High tech, and "empire-ish" race.

Likewise the Nids made a great stand in for The Megarachnids or Bizarre alien race 803-9.

Basically I suppose my point in all of this is while The Horus Heresy itself does tend to focus on marine vs marine and for a lot of people that may seem to be rather rigid and restricting, and believe me I get that, if you take a few steps back in the setting to the actual Great Crusade then things change. You fall back into an open-ended time of myth legend and imagination, there is a darkness on the horizon is that in the back of your mind you know is the Horus Heresy and what falls after that, but in the now you have what is basically an open canvas to manufacture whatever events you want because quite frankly during that time it is a completely open galaxy with an endless supply of possible enemies to fight against in that case the only limit really is whatever you can think up.

And that's what I like about 30k

 Hollowman wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The two of you realize that the OP's assertion, which Rowboat was addressing, is that the game is "all Marines all the time", yes? So with that being the OP's assertion, pointing out an inequality in the Xenos-Marine ratio literally does not contradict or even address Rowboat's argument at all. "Diversity" exists in the game- whether it's enough diversity or not is an entirely separately matter, but the fact remains that to say "there's only Marine factions in 40K!" is an objectively false statement.

Please don't make strawmans, it brings down the quality of the entire board.

You do realize you just made a straw man argument, right? Or did you actually assume he literally meant non Marine armies were not an option? If so, you pretty clearly misread the context of the statement. If it helps, what he was implying was that Marine on Marine is so prevelant that it might as well be a game entirely lacking in other options due to the inbuilt lack of diversity.

You have no idea what he is or isn't implying. I take posts at face value- if he feels that his assertions shouldn't be taken literally then he's free to clarify.

I play Ordo Reductor so 100% of my games are not Marine on Marine.

Though I did play a Cybernetica list yesterday.

((We had 0 of the same units)).

I find 40K Marines to be as bland as it gets, I am exclusively a Xenos player (various flavours of Eldar and Tyranids with a little interest in Tau, Daemons and Necrons) and have no interest in ever taking up any of the IoM factions other than AdMech (though I might consider Sisters of Battle should they ever get plastic models). But, there's some thing very appealing to me about the 30K Marines, Forgeworld resin helps here quite a bit but I like the Betrayal at Calth plastic as well, the vehicles in particular look much better than the Citadel vehicles and though I could use them in 40K, since I've already bought the Crusade red book to get their rules why on earth wouldn't I want to use the 30K rules for Marines as well?

There is also nothing to stop me from using a 30K army against a 40K army or vice versa should my opponent agree to a game, though of course balance is non existent in the more standard 40K sized games of 1500 to 1850pts since 40K works best at MSU whilst 30K is very much all about maxing out the units which cost a lot more at base. Larger games of 2000pts+ become far more interesting though.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Not sure what this talk of existing player base is about, because 30k is a new game for it's own TARGETED AUDIENCE (Adults, long time players, fans of fluff, banana-clip missile launcher lovers.).

Forgeworld are not ridding themselves of anyone important in their eyes, those who don't buy their products are not accounted for.

I hate to be pretencious but honestly, I'd rather stick with a consistent, balanced game that recieves frequent FAQ's, book releases, problem adressing (i.e Old Legions being buffed, some might yell Power Creep but it's not, It's called testing the market and improving the game, think of it like Patch Updates on a video game.) and consistently good looking miniatures across their whole line than a deliberately money-grubbing company with inconsistent rules, miniatures, paint systems and £20 FOR A PAIR OF CLIPPERS? WHAT!?

Games Workshop = Forge World. Same company, money goes to the same place. 30k for me is for 40k vets angry at GW and who don't want to give them their money, but still love the background. Buying FW allows them to convince themselves it's sticking it to GW.

Yep, people spending money on FW over GW hasn't changed anything. Totally ineffectual.

Except for making the HH line so popular GW had to put out a box full of (relatively)cheap plastic models so FW could even hope to keep expanding the range given the sheer volume of resin they've been shifting.

And except for very likely being one of the big reasons behind the return of Specialist Games being produced by a team with FW guys at the helm.

But aye, sure, what have the Romans ever done for us etc.

I think the use of the term '30k' is misleading here.

People complain about the lack of diversity in '30k' because as we have established most things are indeed marines (i know there are others and it's all different but thats irrelevant to my point). What you are really complaining about is the HH, the only conflict we have been provided rules for, and you are entirely correct it is mostly marines but that was the entire point. The setting of '30k' is much wider than this and I personally just use the xenos rules quite happily and it has worked very well for 30k so far.

I just feel that a lot of the people here are arguing different things; HH vs 40k, and 30k vs 40k, which are very different things which is why this conversation keeps going in circles

 Warzoner wrote:
Hi people. So recently I came uppon a realization : most players around me seem to like 30k, but I seem to strongly dislike it. Maybe it's the fact that the CSM don't look like a bunch of warped chaos fiend in power armour. Maybe it's because it seems like an all marine vs marine game (I'm a proud defender of Xenos political correctness). Maybe it's the fluff: I've always felt that 30k was more like a space opera/ drama / greek tragedy than a grimdark setting.

What's your opinion on 30k ?

30k caters more to a more mature gamer, someone who loves the game more than playing a game he/she needs to win at.

Even though the game is set in the future, 30k is more a historical game. It isn't really a competitive game. Though you can find people who will WAAC their lists, the majority of 30k gamers are more interested in their legions historical aspects, units used during the era and play campaign games or recreat battle of the 30k universe.

The 30k traitor marines weren't chaosified as of yet in the 30k. The closest you're gonna get is Word Bearers.

Themetically, you're going to find more folks who want their 30k marines to look how they looked pre-heresy.

All my 30k is played with 6mm SM's. Such a better scale for the setting .

But this isn't just 30k, it's the civil war of the Horus Heresy. It's not about xenos

I like a lot of the units for the sheer number of alternative army builds it gives to a space marine player like myself. Forge world have overall done a great job.

On the other hand I dislike the low tech / archaic aesthetic of some of 30k imperial units. Grey Knight helms have just the right amount historical design influence while still looking great, as do a lot of the aspects of older power armour suits, but as for things like Roman-style horserhair helms, leather tassels and tabards, I think they look plain silly on a warrior of the future. It just doesn't add up to the tech of the rest of the universe. I find it hard to believe that something as techy looking as a Fire Raptor is flying about while there's marines wearing bits of chainmail for the sheer crack of it and Ad Mech tanks that look like antique gearboxes with guns slapped onto them. Just doesn't do it for me.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I like a lot of the units for the sheer number of alternative army builds it gives to a space marine player like myself. Forge world have overall done a great job.

On the other hand I dislike the low tech / archaic aesthetic of some of 30k imperial units. Grey Knight helms have just the right amount historical design influence while still looking great, as do a lot of the aspects of older power armour suits, but as for things like Roman-style horserhair helms, leather tassels and tabards, I think they look plain silly on a warrior of the future. It just doesn't add up to the tech of the rest of the universe. I find it hard to believe that something as techy looking as a Fire Raptor is flying about while there's marines wearing buts of chainmail for the sheer crack of it and Ad Mech tanks that look like antique gearboxes with guns slapped onto them. Just doesn't do it for me.

See, I love this aesthetic. The Admech tanks are energy shielded, and having them be all exposed parts and no armour drives the point home that they are fast and highly mobile while being well-shielded. That makes me think high tech. Imagine how fast an Abrams would be if you replaced its armor with shield generators!

And the leather/chain mail thing I think shows the decadence and pride of the early legions. "Look at me; I am so good at combat I can both afford and wear leather and it doesn't get scuffed or torn "

After reading this thread im considering giving it a go, but how is the balance between the legions? Is the balance as close as it should/Could or are some of the legions stronger?

Balance is not perfect. Foot World Eaters are going to have a tough time against artillery Iron Warriors. However, it is nowhere as bad as what you'd find in 40k. There are no Eldar. There are no Necrons. There are no Tau. LoW has a number of limitations, such as being available only in 2000+ matches, can be no more than 25% of your points, and give additional victory points to your enemy when slain.