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40k is a game dominated by special rules, everything has to have at least 2/3 special rules. The core rules are over simplified, all complexity and interplay comes from the various special rules interacting and bouncing off one another.

This doesn't happen in wargames, units are not festooned with special rules, that isn't to say that special rules don't exist, but rather the complexity and interplay arises from the core rules. Which allows for realistic (even in a Science-fantasy game such as 40k there should be elements of realism) tactics and strategies to be adopted and benefited from.

I can see how to those who have only played GW game systems that 40k looks like a wargame. Because it does look like a wargame on the surface, but scratch just beneath that surface and it simply isn't.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
IMO 8th edition is just a board game, it's no longer trying to simulate actual combat. Which has been very good for the game itself (because GW sucked at simulating combat), but probably not for people who want to play a wargame.

It requires strategy, just like any board or card game with any resemblance of depth, but no actual strategies that you would see on a battlefield.

The definition of a wargame is miniatures with gear, terrain on the table, and combat with strategy.

40k is this, it doesnt matter is the stratagem is less than other games, it is a wargame, it fits the 3 criteria.

Saying 40k isnt a wargame is like saying "The Room" isnt a move b.c its gakky story and acting, it still has everything a movie has.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargaming

Your counterargument is a link that says 40k is the most profitable wargame ever. :p

Wikipedia to the rescue:

A wargame (also war game) is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short.

So yes, I think so long as we have at least the catchphrase: "There is only war." we are good.

 Talizvar wrote:
Wikipedia to the rescue:

A wargame (also war game) is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short.

So yes, I think so long as we have at least the catchphrase: "There is only war." we are good.

By that definition the 40k CCG is a "wargame" because it deals with war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
If you feel positioning doesn't matter, feel free to not screen your IG tanks.

You're missing the point here. Screening exists, but it isn't meaningful positioning because it's so obvious how to do it. You deploy your bubble wrap that was taken specifically for the purpose of being bubble wrap, and you're probably deploying it exactly the same way each time. At no point are you making any interesting decisions, and those screening units become little more than blocking with a 1/1 creature in MTG. You could take the entire tabletop aspect out of the game and the screens would still work the same way.

And sometimes you're screening with non-bubble wrap, and then the choice to screen matters more, and the position of the unit/s in question matter more.

The scenario you're describing is buying units for a single purpose and then only using them for that purpose in the same way every game. Which is basically just on you. The choices you make in the army building phase define whether or not you're going to get "tactical" with your units. Essentially your blaming the game for your own choices.

The problem is the only meaningful choices that exist in 40k are all in list building. Once minis hit the table there isn't much to do but declare targets and resolve attacks.

Blastaar wrote:
The problem is the only meaningful choices that exist in 40k are all in list building. Once minis hit the table there isn't much to do but declare targets and resolve attacks.

Then you're either a not very good, you play a very simple army, or you are taking for granted the numerous choices you actually do make on the table.

If you're experienced at the game, play against a non-tactically inclined player some time and see how many poor choices they make.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
The problem is the only meaningful choices that exist in 40k are all in list building. Once minis hit the table there isn't much to do but declare targets and resolve attacks.

Then you're either a not very good, you play a very simple army, or you are taking for granted the numerous choices you actually do make on the table.

If you're experienced at the game, play against a non-tactically inclined player some time and see how many poor choices they make.

I have been playing Wargames since 1988, and I have lost most games of 8th not because my tactics are lacking. It is because I lost in the list building stage. Which is the main tactics in current 40k. A poor list will lose against a good list regardless of player skill. In a wargame there are ways and means that a poor list can still out perform a good list.

 stonehorse wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
The problem is the only meaningful choices that exist in 40k are all in list building. Once minis hit the table there isn't much to do but declare targets and resolve attacks.

Then you're either a not very good, you play a very simple army, or you are taking for granted the numerous choices you actually do make on the table.

If you're experienced at the game, play against a non-tactically inclined player some time and see how many poor choices they make.

I have been playing Wargames since 1988, and I have lost most games of 8th not because my tactics are lacking. It is because I lost in the list building stage. Which is the main tactics in current 40k. A poor list will lose against a good list regardless of player skill. In a wargame there are ways and means that a poor list can still out perform a good list.

There's no rule that says that needs to be the case for a game to be a wargame.

Despite all of my complaints, I feel the simplification did successfully reduce most situations to booleans (true/false). And this is a good thing. Your model is in cover - or its not. You have LOS or you don't. I think it unfortunately also undermined tactical depth.

Although I doubt it will happen - I would love if 40k had advanced rules options. I would buy a well made rules expansion codex immediately. Battletech did just this - except all in one rule book.

In BT, there are the 'starter' rules that don't deal with sub-systems damage. If your unit lost all armor in one section - it's done. Good for new people or large games. The advanced rules track damage to specific body parts, damage to sub-systems, ammo explosions - tons of detailed damage tracking. Even further down the rabit hole - you can perform piloting moves to 'brace' your mech against buildings or hills, go prone, and lots of other moves.

I think as a side effect of that, BT tends to hook people for life because the ruleset caters to people that are in different levels of 'maturity' in their gaming. The starter rules are boring for players that want more depth, and the super-advanced rules are too much for people wanting a quick game. But if you've got a whole day to kill, at least there's the option of breaking out the geeky hardcore rules.

They actually even have rules for space assaults, planet landings, shooting drop-shops with orbital defenses - if you want you could conduct a full planetary raid from start to end.

I don't think 40k needs full rulesets from space battles, to titan battles, down to 28mm scale with full complex flanking maneuvers - but I think a half-notch up the complexity ladder would help retain older fans - even if the advanced rules were just optional.

Well I'd disagree with the "Battletech for life" bit as I swapped to 40k 20 odd years ago and pretty much stayed with it.

I found battletech "list building" to be mech creation, and if you made a sick mech or two, you could really get some work done. It was fun though, figuring out where all your ferro-fibrous slots would go, etc. I remember I built a mech with all pulse lasers and a targeting computer, and it would just go around punching holes through the center torsos of opponent mechs. Or another one armed with nothing but SRM6 Streaks that just plowed through things. Battletech, like 40k, I recall as a "you get out what you put in" sort of thing.

 eddieazrael wrote:
Bait title i know, but I need to add a lot of context. I first played 'wargames' some 30 years ago, starting with 2nd ed Warhammer, then moving through Space Marine/Epic, 40k,Horus Heresy board game, Battlefleet Gothic, Warmaster etc, until life moved me along and I put away/sold my minis in exchange for a family.

I re-entered the 'hobby' primarily through modelling kits, which led me to historicals (ww2 and moderns) - I've seen the recent partwork Warhammer conquest and thus thought about re-starting 40k. BUT - on reading about 40k as it is now, I see comments about 'tabling the opposition on turn 1' or 'list building'.
When I played those other 'wargames' the focus was generally on replicating tactics (real or imagined) that the troops represented would use in 'real' life - overwatching, combined arms, flanking shieldwalls etc - that doesn't seem to be the playerbase focus in 40k, instead it seems to be about 'gaming' the rules themselves as some artificial construct, with any concept that the activity on the board is in some way representative of how a battle might unfold being coincidental at best.

I'm therefore asking dakka - is this right? My brain tells me the issue as I see it is either 1) the 40k rules themselves are poor 'wargame' rules, and if I want to play superhuman Marines against numberless Xenos hordes in a 'realistic' manner then I should get out my copy of the Tomorrows War ruleset; or 2) The rules themselves are fine, but the playerbase has corrupted the intent of the game (whether through design or accident) away from a game trying to simulate war, into a game about itself - the players are playing "Warhammer 40k" as opposed to "Chess", or "Risk", all of which have 'war' themes but don't claim to model actual warfare.

When GW realised they could sell more models by making units OP, that's kinda where things all went to gak. Now people collect all the OP units they can and play to win. I still actually use armies as I like to recreate the lore and realism rather than just trying to win a game, in which if you win not only does no one care ibut those who do, ts the equivalent of taking pride in winning monopoly. The whole tournament thing is just ridiculous to me. I won a tournament at 40k; no one cares.

 eddieazrael wrote:
Bait title i know, but I need to add a lot of context. I first played 'wargames' some 30 years ago, starting with 2nd ed Warhammer, then moving through Space Marine/Epic, 40k,Horus Heresy board game, Battlefleet Gothic, Warmaster etc, until life moved me along and I put away/sold my minis in exchange for a family.

I re-entered the 'hobby' primarily through modelling kits, which led me to historicals (ww2 and moderns) - I've seen the recent partwork Warhammer conquest and thus thought about re-starting 40k. BUT - on reading about 40k as it is now, I see comments about 'tabling the opposition on turn 1' or 'list building'.
When I played those other 'wargames' the focus was generally on replicating tactics (real or imagined) that the troops represented would use in 'real' life - overwatching, combined arms, flanking shieldwalls etc - that doesn't seem to be the playerbase focus in 40k, instead it seems to be about 'gaming' the rules themselves as some artificial construct, with any concept that the activity on the board is in some way representative of how a battle might unfold being coincidental at best.

I'm therefore asking dakka - is this right? My brain tells me the issue as I see it is either 1) the 40k rules themselves are poor 'wargame' rules, and if I want to play superhuman Marines against numberless Xenos hordes in a 'realistic' manner then I should get out my copy of the Tomorrows War ruleset; or 2) The rules themselves are fine, but the playerbase has corrupted the intent of the game (whether through design or accident) away from a game trying to simulate war, into a game about itself - the players are playing "Warhammer 40k" as opposed to "Chess", or "Risk", all of which have 'war' themes but don't claim to model actual warfare.

No it's a glorified card game. Line of sight doesn't matter tactics don't matter. Why bring models at all. You're basically playing a game of magic 8thed destroyed the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I'd say 8th edition isn't because what few things that really required careful consideration such as vehicle facing, fire arcs, reserves and deepstrike being a gamble. Instead you basically have aura hammer with a bit of CP battery to pull of card combo powers.

I've long said that it's basically magic the gathering than the fanboyism takes over and Reeeeeeeeee!!! 8thed is the BEST!!!!! Reeeeeeeeee!

These useless little gaks trying to Ban people whom don't agree so be careful pointing out facts.

I disagree. WH40k is nowhere near as complex or balanced as MtG is.

Also, that most people like 8th over previous edition is a fact, multiple polls and GW's sales have proven that.

Even if you personally don't like it, 8th edition is the game most people want to play.

Complex wargames where battlefield tactics are the core avenue of winning went out of style 15 or more years ago.

Listbuilding as the primary avenue of winning has been the most profitable course of design for a long time now.

Quite frankly, thats what the gaming community wants.

 eddieazrael wrote:
Bait title i know, but I need to add a lot of context. I first played 'wargames' some 30 years ago, starting with 2nd ed Warhammer, then moving through Space Marine/Epic, 40k,Horus Heresy board game, Battlefleet Gothic, Warmaster etc, until life moved me along and I put away/sold my minis in exchange for a family.

I re-entered the 'hobby' primarily through modelling kits, which led me to historicals (ww2 and moderns) - I've seen the recent partwork Warhammer conquest and thus thought about re-starting 40k. BUT - on reading about 40k as it is now, I see comments about 'tabling the opposition on turn 1' or 'list building'.
When I played those other 'wargames' the focus was generally on replicating tactics (real or imagined) that the troops represented would use in 'real' life - overwatching, combined arms, flanking shieldwalls etc - that doesn't seem to be the playerbase focus in 40k, instead it seems to be about 'gaming' the rules themselves as some artificial construct, with any concept that the activity on the board is in some way representative of how a battle might unfold being coincidental at best.

I'm therefore asking dakka - is this right? My brain tells me the issue as I see it is either 1) the 40k rules themselves are poor 'wargame' rules, and if I want to play superhuman Marines against numberless Xenos hordes in a 'realistic' manner then I should get out my copy of the Tomorrows War ruleset; or 2) The rules themselves are fine, but the playerbase has corrupted the intent of the game (whether through design or accident) away from a game trying to simulate war, into a game about itself - the players are playing "Warhammer 40k" as opposed to "Chess", or "Risk", all of which have 'war' themes but don't claim to model actual warfare.

The thing about games in the current decade is that the objective is to win, and more people are getting involved. This means that being the top dog is harder, and so, in true Darwin fashion, only the fittest survive. This means that the top players, of any game no matter what, are those who use the cheapest, easiest to win tactics possible, regardless of "realism." For example, in Call of Duty I've seen players immediately going prone at every opportunity and shooting the enemy from there, avoiding headshots, as well as the infamous camping strategy. Another game I played when I was a kid was Yugioh - until the game transformed into "whoever goes first wins" because players took it to an extreme, calculating out that 40 cards was far superior to maxed decks, as you have less cards, but also less trash cards, less filler, and more focused on the strategy you tried to play. The best way to play then was to basically prevent your opponent from playing. Cards that stopped Spells, Traps, summons, attacking, effects. Get any 3 of them down and you can wager that you have a good shot. Stop 4 of them and you pretty much win.

40k has kind of taken the same turn. The easiest way to win 40k is simply stop your opponent from playing. Kill all his anti-tank in turn one, then your armour can advance at will and decimate his armour with little fear of retaliation. Its really annoying to be on the receiving end, but undeniably the easiest way to win. It actually does have its beginnings in both real life tactics and Chess. You could compare it to Nazi Germany Blitzkrieg tactics where the Lufftwaffe takes out airfields first, preventing the target from having aerial dominance, minimising Lufftwaffe loses to only AA weapon, and allows the landbound armoured columns to advance without fear of aircraft bombardments. Related to chess, a highly effective strategy to use is the Fork-Check, where you endanger the king, and another piece simulateously. The opponent has no choice but to protect his king, allowing you to take his other piece unopposed.



However, you will find that 40k armies actually replicating their lore tactics is hard to come by. This is due to game balance, with some units being better than others. For example, Tyranids in the lore often show Carnifexes as hulking melee monsters that tear everything apart at close range. Yet, if the tabletop is to believed, EVERY carnifex and hive tyrant comes with 4 Twin Devourers without exception, and the horde has exactly 0 pyrovores. Similarly, it would have you believe that Eldar only ever deploy if they have a Wave Serpent for every 5 or 10 warriors, and that Tau only ever deploy with three Riptides. It would also have you believe that every Space Marine army deploys entirely on bikes, led by their chapter master wielding a Thunder Hammer.

These are all just game balance issues. Chapter Master Smashfether was objectively a better HQ that a captain. Bikers are tougher than other Marines and faster, thereby better at tank hunting. Wave Serpents have their powerful shield, making them much better than other, true tanks. And of course, Carnifexes with melee weapons or combo of weapons is objectively worse than Dakkafexes because of the Dakkafex' overwhelming firepower. And Pyrovores suck, but if the lore and Deathwatch PS4 game are to believed, they strike fear into the hearts of any creature (seriously, they have insane range and damage output). Others like Blood Angels were just stopped entirely from following their tactics (Drop in via jump pack and engage in melee, and in 7th, Assault from Deep Strike is banned)

Some armies still do replicate their lore tactics. The Imperial Guard is one if you take an armoured column. Space Marines to an extent do follow their tactics, with Devastators laying down heavy fire support, tacticals holding key objectives and assault marines engaging foes in close. The issue is that these units that follow the lore aren't taken so often as their elite and superior counterparts.

It's not been a wargame for decades now.
In fact even being compared to a wargame is insulting.
It's only similarities are rolling dice and using a tape measure.

A wargame is something that actually requires a brain and played by people who actually have some pride in what they do.

40k requires 5 minutes on the net searching for lists to rip off so as to use minimal effort and show no interest in what your doing at all.

What facts? There was zero factual content in that post.


Here's a fun observation. If you play on an empty table, certain units will be favored. But If you play on a really dense table, a very different set of units will be favored. Hence, not a ccg.

Terrain has never mattered less though. there are hardly any movement modifers, dangerous terrain isn't a thing anymore, cover is a lot harder to get, position barely matters anymore other than having a bit a model in range. Hell terrain in the 8th edition battle primer is a side box, it didn't even get a full page of rules. The only terrain that really matters is if it's a solid LOS blocking piece.

 Jidmah wrote:
I disagree. WH40k is nowhere near as complex or balanced as MtG is.

Also, that most people like 8th over previous edition is a fact, multiple polls and GW's sales have proven that.

Even if you personally don't like it, 8th edition is the game most people want to play.

Complex sure.

Balanced...... LOL.

mtg is a game of whoever spends the most money to make their decks most consistent or broken the game.

 Desubot wrote:
Complex sure.

Balanced...... LOL.

mtg is a game of whoever spends the most money to make their decks most consistent or broken the game.

It really depends on the format in MTG for balance. The main difference with regards to price between MTG and 40k is ultimately down to how products are sold. Most cards are bought on the secondary market so they're susceptible to price changes due to supply and demand. Generally speaking a card is expensive because it is good, not good because it's expensive or rare. 40k you can just buy exactly what you want straight from GW so the price doesn't really change with regards to how good or bad a unit is. Both games are ultimately pay to win if you're just buying whatever is best at the time. The prices in 40k are just less volatile. In MTG there is usually some sort of simple relatively cheap deck though in each format that you can tweak to your taste. 40k doesn't really have that though, you can build something reasonable for death guard relatively cheaply from starter sets but once you start upgrading it it quickly gets up towards the price of every other list.

 IronBrand wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Complex sure.

Balanced...... LOL.

mtg is a game of whoever spends the most money to make their decks most consistent or broken the game.

It really depends on the format in MTG for balance. The main difference with regards to price between MTG and 40k is ultimately down to how products are sold. Most cards are bought on the secondary market so they're susceptible to price changes due to supply and demand. Generally speaking a card is expensive because it is good, not good because it's expensive or rare. 40k you can just buy exactly what you want straight from GW so the price doesn't really change with regards to how good or bad a unit is. Both games are ultimately pay to win if you're just buying whatever is best at the time. The prices in 40k are just less volatile. In MTG there is usually some sort of simple relatively cheap deck though in each format that you can tweak to your taste. 40k doesn't really have that though, you can build something reasonable for death guard relatively cheaply from starter sets but once you start upgrading it it quickly gets up towards the price of every other list.

Well definitely correct.

but what i was getting at is that in basically every format there are consistent format destroying cards, and more or less the same amount of list variety as 40k does per format. all this obviously applying to competitive magic.

The Allfather wrote:


No it's a glorified card game. Line of sight doesn't matter tactics don't matter. Why bring models at all. You're basically playing a game of magic 8thed destroyed the game.

While I would agree with the general sentiment that 40k is extremely thin on actual wargaming mechanics not too dissimilar from Magic, 8E hardly destroyed the game. 6E and 7E demonstrably did, as heavily evidenced by falling revenues and 40k being (at least temporarily) dethroned for the first time in two decades as the largest selling tabletop miniatures game. 7E in particular was an abomination of confused game design and scale conflict.

If I never have to deal with another Challenge, Jink, nested random rolls, Hull Points, or Formations again, it will be too soon.

Being real though, 40k has been very "Wargaming Lite" for most of its existence, with listbuilding being of greater importance than tabletop tactics for pretty much that whole time. 8E is by no means a perfect ruleset, but it does a better job of acknowledging what tabletop 40k really is in GW's eyes, which really nothing more than a framework for playing with plastic toy soldiers.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Terrain has never mattered less though. there are hardly any movement modifers, dangerous terrain isn't a thing anymore, cover is a lot harder to get, position barely matters anymore other than having a bit a model in range. Hell terrain in the 8th edition battle primer is a side box, it didn't even get a full page of rules. The only terrain that really matters is if it's a solid LOS blocking piece.

Ruins allow freedom of movement to infantry, while walls block movement for many other units. Playing on a table full of ruins hurts units like tanks a lot. It also helps things like elite infantry, as they can engage against small portions of the enemy at a time, concentration of force matters more. Not to mention the inability of some units to gain access to levels of a ruin other than the first.

 Desubot wrote:

 IronBrand wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Complex sure.

Balanced...... LOL.

mtg is a game of whoever spends the most money to make their decks most consistent or broken the game.

It really depends on the format in MTG for balance. The main difference with regards to price between MTG and 40k is ultimately down to how products are sold. Most cards are bought on the secondary market so they're susceptible to price changes due to supply and demand. Generally speaking a card is expensive because it is good, not good because it's expensive or rare. 40k you can just buy exactly what you want straight from GW so the price doesn't really change with regards to how good or bad a unit is. Both games are ultimately pay to win if you're just buying whatever is best at the time. The prices in 40k are just less volatile. In MTG there is usually some sort of simple relatively cheap deck though in each format that you can tweak to your taste. 40k doesn't really have that though, you can build something reasonable for death guard relatively cheaply from starter sets but once you start upgrading it it quickly gets up towards the price of every other list.

Well definitely correct.

but what i was getting at is that in basically every format there are consistent format destroying cards, and more or less the same amount of list variety as 40k does per format. all this obviously applying to competitive magic.

The thing is, while maintaining four formats of highly competitive constructed play, MtG also supports commander and limited formats as well, plus it works really well in casual setting where everyone is just building cards from whatever and playing them.
You can easily build well-rounded decks for 60-70 euros and do relatively well in casual setting, while you can spend hundreds of euros on a well.rounded WH40k army which has no chance of winning because you happend to paint your space marines in the wrong color and/or brought the wrong units unless your opponent invests more money to make his army weaker.
The difference between a Plateau (120€) and a Clifftop Retreat (0.95€) is basically non-existent compared the difference between a Knight and a Gorkanaut.

As for the top competitive scene - a standard meta that is considered very well balanced and fun usually has a maximum of 5 to 6 top tier decks. So I think for the top competitive, GW is on a good path, but there is still an entire iceberg below the surface that also needs to be addressed.

 Jidmah wrote:

As for the top competitive scene - a standard meta that is considered very well balanced and fun usually has a maximum of 5 to 6 top tier decks. So I think for the top competitive, GW is on a good path, but there is still an entire iceberg below the surface that also needs to be addressed.

mmmmm well i guess thats a matter of opinion as i find this to be the weakest part of any competitive setting. its incredibility sucky to see the same 5-6 lists win constantly. its really really REALLY boring.

but then im a brewer and i enjoy messing with more tuned casual decks than focusing on top level meta decks.

It's hilarious that some people are such uptight snobs about mucking about with toy soldiers that they're willing to go to this level of semantic hair-splitting in a bid to convince themselves they're better and smarter than the toy soldier hoi polloi.

In the strictest sense, yes 40k is still a war game. You have large scale armies, you have a battlefield with terrain, you kill each other with dice and movement is done by tape measure. All components of anything I would define as a war game .

However the fact is that GW has no interest in really making the rules into something that resembles an actual balanced experience. They take no responsibility or pride in why you enjoy the game itself, there is no attempt at balance, point costs are wildly out of whack for things like how many points an individual wound is worth, they push out(admittedly very pretty and awesome) titanic models that just dont feel like they should ever have a place in a battle at the scale that is happening and then print rules out that just feel...wrong in a fluff and competitive setting. A group of guardsman shooting lasguns at a knight and they wound it? Really? Thats like me and a group of my friends attacking a small mountain with handguns, it makes no sense that it should be a thing and yet they put it in and then wonder why people are fine with lists where you have 3 models that can actually hurt something and then you just hurl dice at anything else until it falls over out of pity.

Compare this to a war game like Warmachine where the company's goal is to provide a balanced experience, where the vast majority of lists you build can have a real chance at winning a game, a yearly scenario pack that provides options for winning where board control and positioning can play such a significant role in the game that sometimes a game will be won with a minimal number of models killed. Terrain rules that actually significantly influence the game, point costs that make sense, every faction getting similar numbers of releases and new models, and consistency in the balance changes they make compared to "Well we think this turn one deep striking is a real problem so we're gonna significantly weaken it....except for all these exceptions where you can still absolutely deep strike turn one completely ignoring the change we just made, there did we fix it?"

Any game where you need something like the character rule in order to make lists playable has real problems, maybe 9th edition will be better.

 eddieazrael wrote:
Bait title i know, but I need to add a lot of context. I first played 'wargames' some 30 years ago, starting with 2nd ed Warhammer, then moving through Space Marine/Epic, 40k,Horus Heresy board game, Battlefleet Gothic, Warmaster etc, until life moved me along and I put away/sold my minis in exchange for a family.

I re-entered the 'hobby' primarily through modelling kits, which led me to historicals (ww2 and moderns) - I've seen the recent partwork Warhammer conquest and thus thought about re-starting 40k. BUT - on reading about 40k as it is now, I see comments about 'tabling the opposition on turn 1' or 'list building'.
When I played those other 'wargames' the focus was generally on replicating tactics (real or imagined) that the troops represented would use in 'real' life - overwatching, combined arms, flanking shieldwalls etc - that doesn't seem to be the playerbase focus in 40k, instead it seems to be about 'gaming' the rules themselves as some artificial construct, with any concept that the activity on the board is in some way representative of how a battle might unfold being coincidental at best.

I'm therefore asking dakka - is this right? My brain tells me the issue as I see it is either 1) the 40k rules themselves are poor 'wargame' rules, and if I want to play superhuman Marines against numberless Xenos hordes in a 'realistic' manner then I should get out my copy of the Tomorrows War ruleset; or 2) The rules themselves are fine, but the playerbase has corrupted the intent of the game (whether through design or accident) away from a game trying to simulate war, into a game about itself - the players are playing "Warhammer 40k" as opposed to "Chess", or "Risk", all of which have 'war' themes but don't claim to model actual warfare.

I concur with your observations and I think that 1) is the clear explanation.

This is a problem that started with 3rd ed. GW observed that gamers wanted to field bigger armies but 2nd ed became clunky when armies exceeded a few dozen models. 3rd ed was rushed out and while it was successful in creating a game that could be played in a few hours with much larger armies than were common in 2nd ed, it stripped out much of the flavour of 2nd ed.

GW spent the best part of two decades trying to inject flavour back into the 3rd ed format but the problem was systemic. The biggest problem with 40k post 3rd ed is a lack of congruence between the physical scale of the game and the scale of the models. GW wants to have its cake and eat it - it wants to sell 28mm models and allow players to field huge armies. Individual 28mm models are a sub optimal scale for the latter.

2nd ed had its flaws but they were mostly flaws in the details - bloated psychic phase, complex wargear, persistent effects, time consuming combat system etc. Skirmish scale games such as Necromunda show that t's a pretty decent system for a game in which each individual is represented by a single independent model. It's a system that scales downwards very well but it doesn't scale as well in the opposite direction. It was never intended to be played with more than a few squads and vehicles.

3rd ed took the game into no mans land. It tried to transition the system from platoon scale to company scale. This would have been better represented by a model scale in between 2nd ed 40k and Epic. It's no coincidence that many of the frustrations of 3rd to 7th ed relate to the treatment of individual models in a more abstract system (e.g. wound allocation). Moving from a less abstract system such as 2nd ed to a more abstract system such as 3rd ed changes the manner in which tactics are addressed. In a less abstract system units are allowed to perform certain actions and players develop bespoke tactics based on those available actions. A more abstract system will tend to be more prescriptive and will introduce a specific mechanic to address a particular tactic (e.g. pinning). IMO, this has made 40k less fun because it has removed the meaningful interaction of models with their environment characteristic of 2nd ed and has replaced it with a halfway house company level game which doesn't really introduce the requisite level of company level tactics to make it compelling due to being hamstrung by the physical scale.

8th ed was the first genuine attempt to fix all this and it's a mixed bag. It's a much cleaner ruleset but it suffers from even more of the over abstraction that plagued 40k since 3rd ed. This solidifies my view that the problem is incongruence between the physical scale and the rules scale.

...

Kids say the darndest things.