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Depends what you mean by "browbeat." The fact that people disagree doesn't make them trolls, it just means they disagree; the fact that someone continues to disagree with you even though you really think they're wrong doesn't make them a troll either, nor does it mean that anyone is browbeating anyone else.

When things get personal here, more often than not it's started by someone attacking someone for being negative, rather than attacking someone for being positive. When was the last time you saw a post on dakka devoted to ranting about fanbois, the way this one is a rant about haters? It happens, but it's far rarer than the opposite, and it's even rarer for "haters" to focus on a particular person and attack them personally. You probably see a personal attack along the lines of "you're just a hater, you hate everything" at least 5x as often as "you're just a fanboi, you'll defend GW for anything!" on these forums.

It's an ironic fact of the way fan discourse works that it's the stans who are more likely to make personal attacks due to a disagreement than the haters, because the stans are more likely to perceive an attack on the product as an attack on themselves, and respond accordingly. It's not an absolute rule, but definitely a tendency.

PenitentJake wrote:

 aphyon wrote:


Ditto that's why we went back to playing older editions where it is the way the armies would behave in the lore with in game rules to represent that. rather it be blood frenzy for khorne berserkers, or born in the saddle for white scars etc...

Huh. That surprises me. I'm skating around the edges of Chaos, though I'm a Slaanesh guy. Because I haven't done a deep dive, I haven't slammed up against any barriers to my craving for fluff-based play. Similarly, I don't really play marines, though I do appreciate Deathwatch and Greyknights as Chambers Militant of the Inquisition.

My primary army is Sisters, with a strong secondary in GSC, which probably has more to do with why I think 40k kinda sucked from 4th ed to 7th inclusive than any other factor; neither of my primary armies was shown much love after 3rd... Until 8th brought them back and expanded them.

But I would have thought that subfaction traits were good for story minded players. Prior to 8th, there was no difference between a Sister from the Order of Our Martyred Lady and one from the Bloody Rose. I see that as a failure of rules to reflect fluff. A termagaunt from Leviathon is now different from a termagaunt from Jormungandr. A lot of people don't like strats either; personally, I feel like they make armies play like they should- at least the armies that I play- I can't really comment for the ones I don't play.

I can't wait for the new CSM and Daemon Codices. I think 9th ed dexes have been pretty decent so far; based on Deathwatch and Drukhari- the only 9th ed dexes I have so far- I see vast improvements from 8th. I also love Crusade, and all of its associated bespoke content. I'm hoping that CSM and Daemons see a similar degree of improvement.

Some armies never had a place until 7th or later. i have an admech force i run in 5th edition but the codex i use is from 7th because it is the first and only compatible one. some things just have to be brought into line with 5th ed USRs

As far as editions go the core rules for 5th were the overall best but needed a few tweaks as in some of the versions in 4th or 7th for the same rule were better than they were in 5th. but importing those into 5th was very easy to do.

What it looks like to me is that your having codex issues like many people did. are group allows all codexes from 3rd-7th to be used in our 5th ed games and some obviuously stand out above the others. there has never been a better lore based codex with all the build options since the 3.5 chaos codex. in fact many of the 3rd and 4th ed codexes and even a few from 5th were the high water mark for their factions.

I also played SOB between 3rd and 4th but it was not my main army (that belonged to dark angels and tau).

In my book strats are garbage because you have to use a resource mechanic to enable things that were previously built in to the faction as natural abilities or equipment you could buy from the armory. additionally the amount of time it adds to the game is glaring i can see why they dropped the additional 6th and 7th turns. i can get through 7 turns of our hybrid 5th ed game in the time it takes our 9th ed players to get through 3. i should note that the pandemic only briefly shut down my gaming group, so i managed to observer many games of 9th all through 2020, so this is not coming from a position of inexperience with the new edition.

Some factions had hard restrictions to make them unique stand alone armies-deathwing/ravenwing, saim hann eldar, farsight enclave tau etc.. others gave you the options to build your force in line with specific subfactions by army composition and equipment for your leaders, in the case of SOB rather you went puritan or radical you still had 6 orders to choose from, although it required some effort to research the fighting style and duties of each when designing your army.

Crusade is an absurdly complex campaign system that is a rework of the old 4th ed kill team campaign rules that consisted of 2 pages-a wound effects chart and an experience progression chart. there were also loads of optional missions in the old editions such as combat patrols and kill team missions in the 4th ed rulebook that allowed the players to create their own campaign. they didn't need GW to tell them how to do it. there is nothing about 9th edition or any of it's codexes i find decent or worth my time. to me the game isn't even 40k anymore.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Depends what you mean by "browbeat." The fact that people disagree doesn't make them trolls, it just means they disagree; the fact that someone continues to disagree with you even though you really think they're wrong doesn't make them a troll either, nor does it mean that anyone is browbeating anyone else.

When things get personal here, more often than not it's started by someone attacking someone for being negative, rather than attacking someone for being positive. When was the last time you saw a post on dakka devoted to ranting about fanbois, the way this one is a rant about haters? It happens, but it's far rarer than the opposite, and it's even rarer for "haters" to focus on a particular person and attack them personally. You probably see a personal attack along the lines of "you're just a hater, you hate everything" at least 5x as often as "you're just a fanboi, you'll defend GW for anything!" on these forums.

It's an ironic fact of the way fan discourse works that it's the stans who are more likely to make personal attacks due to a disagreement than the haters, because the stans are more likely to perceive an attack on the product as an attack on themselves, and respond accordingly. It's not an absolute rule, but definitely a tendency.

You keep framing it like I'm calling people trolls when I'm not.

Browbeating, or shouting down, or creating a negative echo chamber are all things that mean the same thing: shutting out dissenting ideas, something Dakka has struggled with for some time. It's better than it was during 6th and 7th, but this site has a history of mining salt like it's gold.

And I don't spend too much time on Dakka these days but I recall one prominant Ultramarines player (who I won't name just to keep the muck raking down) being attacked for "white knighting" not even a year ago. All because he was more positive on certain things in the game than the general consensus on the site.

So it's not as common as it used to be but it does happen. That's not even getting into naming names of some of the more prominent black knights we've had on this site.

See, I don't think that's really true. You don't see much shouting down of dissenting ideas here, not really. A stan may feel that a bunch of posters all posting negative things is a "negative echo chamber" that amounts to an attack on them and their views, but it really isn't, it's just a bunch of people agreeing on something the stan disagrees with.

The shouting down of dissenting ideas you do see here is usually of the "haters suck!" variety (like the general topic of this thread), or the guy who showed up yesterday to rant about how negative posters were a "cancer" and a "tumor" (whose posts were promptly removed). I mean this whole thread - at least the posts agreeing with how bad negative posters are - is essentially one big shout-down of people who express negative views.

It's significantly rarer to see topics along the lines of "people who like GW are terrible! discuss!" where a bunch of people happily pile in to rant about fanbois. And you certainly don't see GW fans being called cancer or tumors.

I'm not saying there aren't people here who are irrationally biased against the game. Just that those people are actually less likely to move the discussion to personal attacks than the contingent here that specializes in the drive-by attack on "dakka haters."

I won't call them trolls for the most part, but we do have a contingent of peopoe who will ascribe malice for everything GW does and spin any arguement of why their claims are ridiculious into simping for GW.

This does happen. One of my personal favorites was a poster (who I never saw before or after this incident) explaining in a thread that GW increasing points on everything was part of a master plan for some insane thing. I can't recall exactly the finer points but GW's plan to cause us to need FEWER models was a massively evil plan on GW's part. It involved the ITC somehow being a threat to GW's IP and something about Table War mats. Grade A insanity.

That said, I feel like that's a pretty specific subset of posters and it ends up being predictable. Nothing blocking can't handle ...

I can't really agree it's part of some global trend on Dakka, and when it comes to the extreme posters, it happens in both directions. I don't really see a preference for one version of "Knight" over the other. I see plenty of out-there examples from both, and honestly, it's about even. I wonder if you notice the "Black Knights" more because you try to gravitate towards a positive outlook?

I freely admit I am a bit more positive but I have learned to temper it and avoid falling into blind positivity. I try to acknowledge when GW screws up, but I also try to give them credit when they make steps in the right direct, even when those steps are small.

That said my "favorite" of the negative crowd has to be the "bending of the English language into obscure definitions or grammar arguements to prove the ruleset is 'unplayable'". I don't see it as much as I used to but that was the most headscratching thing to deal with.

Togusa wrote:
So my question to those who are unhappy with the current state of their respective game and the company as a whole is why do you all stay and collectively subject yourself to something a lot of you clearly hate? I see it time and time again in just about every thread, the literal same arguments people were having two years ago about primaris this, stormcast that, my rules suck, that new army get's more support than my 1 character, 2 troop army that hasn't been good since third edition, I don't like the aesthetics, I don't like the rules! Complain, complain, complain. Clearly this hobby makes you unhappy, so why do you subject yourself to it continuously when a lot of you even go so far as to say that it's never going to change? It's like you know it's bad for your health, but you keep coming back and I just don't understand it?

The most recent example is the sad excuse of the "new" Fallen rules. GW literally just copy-pasted the 8th edition ones, didn't even give them 2 wounds. This could have been a chance to actually make them a unique faction.

There's some great ideas here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/798407.page

Basically if you take a Renegade aligned Fallen detachment you can take First-born units and may use codex Space Marines non-named chapter abilities. Then a Chaos aligned Fallen detachment can do the same with codex Chaos Space Marines.

*****

Another example is not giving all Marines (Chaos, Grey-Knights, even Custodes) an additional wound in a FAQ then just adjusting their points. Instead of making them wait months, maybe even upwards to a year for their codexes to be released.

***

There's also the missed fusion/melta weapons that didn't receive the updated rules. For example the Tau Fusion Blaster, Knight Thermal Cannon, etc.

I would like to someone explain to someone like me, in simple words. why anyone who plays Renegade Guard or armies in similar state should be bursting out with happiness.

Karol wrote:
I would like to someone explain to someone like me, in simple words. why anyone who plays Renegade Guard or armies in similar state should be bursting out with happiness.

I can't remember a single time you've been happy unless you finally moved to a better gaming group that that grognard one that used to club you like a baby seal.

I freely admit I am a bit more positive but I have learned to temper it and avoid falling into blind positivity. I try to acknowledge when GW screws up, but I also try to give them credit when they make steps in the right direct, even when those steps are small.

That's fair. I try to do the same but I feel like when they make mistakes that bug me it tends to come in clumps so it seems like I am more on the negative side at times than I actually am.

That said my "favorite" of the negative crowd has to be the "bending of the English language into obscure definitions or grammar arguements to prove the ruleset is 'unplayable'". I don't see it as much as I used to but that was the most headscratching thing to deal with.

Yeah, agreed. That 's always a special moment.

Karol wrote:
I would like to someone explain to someone like me, in simple words. why anyone who plays Renegade Guard or armies in similar state should be bursting out with happiness.

This is fair, any Forge World army player has every right to be mad. Renegades and Heretics are gone, Elysians are gone, DKOK is hanging on by a thread. DKOK is nothing more than an expensive army skin, with a bad regiment trait, and 5 unique datasheets (3 of those being horses).

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Karol wrote:
I would like to someone explain to someone like me, in simple words. why anyone who plays Renegade Guard or armies in similar state should be bursting out with happiness.

I can't remember a single time you've been happy unless you finally moved to a better gaming group that that grognard one that used to club you like a baby seal.

I was told to not make every post about myself. So my question stands. If someone has been waiting for 2-3 editions for an updated and GW pulled a legends on them, or did nothing to fix the army in 2-3 what are they suppose to be happy about. And contrary to maybe some people think, not everyone can support 5-6 armies and 2+ different games played at the same time.

Plus even if we do come back to me and my army, how is GK not having updated stat lines by GW somehow the fault of the place I play at ? And we had 9th ed close to year now right? Seems like with all the free time, and delays those people from the design studio could write a page long PDF for armies like csm or GK, as an errata before those armies get their codex.

Karol wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Karol wrote:
I would like to someone explain to someone like me, in simple words. why anyone who plays Renegade Guard or armies in similar state should be bursting out with happiness.

I can't remember a single time you've been happy unless you finally moved to a better gaming group that that grognard one that used to club you like a baby seal.

I was told to not make every post about myself. So my question stands. If someone has been waiting for 2-3 editions for an updated and GW pulled a legends on them, or did nothing to fix the army in 2-3 what are they suppose to be happy about. And contrary to maybe some people think, not everyone can support 5-6 armies and 2+ different games played at the same time.

Plus even if we do come back to me and my army, how is GK not having updated stat lines by GW somehow the fault of the place I play at ? And we had 9th ed close to year now right? Seems like with all the free time, and delays those people from the design studio could write a page long PDF for armies like csm or GK, as an errata before those armies get their codex.

The people you play with are notoriously toxic and seal bashing and your posts tend to reflect that, even when everyone else is more middle of the road about how good or bad things are. And I've heard of people giving CSM and Grey Knights bonus wounds to make the game more balanced, but I doubt your group is doing that.

I don't fault anyone who is upset with how GW is handling the transfer of FW rules (and likely models over time), it's been less than stellar, but I'm honestly hoping it improves because there is a lot of room for cool stuff in the game that could be better supported than it was under FW.

That said, I sincerely hope this isn't another one of your attempts to drag a thread off topic with how negative your personal game experience has been over the years. You have a bad habit about doing that anytime rules balance comes up and that horse is well past dead.

GW probably rely on the miserable and disappointing feelings(even if they don’t know it) they create to push people around to try new army’s and buy more, with many players feeling trapped or unable to start a new game.

Often even finding a single player can be a lot of work for other games. So moving to another faction to at least be less miserable is seen as a good option.

You know what, the I hear of magical place where things go my way type of argument has been used, so many times I don't even know how to comment it.


Again don't turn this in to a me thing. You think a GSC player is happy how 9th is going on right now, or a Knight player? I just happen to have the privilage of being the owner of an army which has been bottom tier for multiple editions, that is all.

Or how about CSM, I don't care about them or their players. But I assume that if someone doesn't like to play AL or some sort of soup list with demons their army was good last time when, in 4th or 3ed?


How long can someone stay "honestly hoping for improvments"? And after how long is it okey to say, okey this army is screwed and anyone who is playing is probably on avarge not having much fun with it. Is it an edition, more then an edition ? Or does one have to wait for the army to become illegal, and then it is okey to say that bretonian players are more or less allowed to be unhappy about the shape of GW games ?

ClockworkZion wrote:

Karol wrote:
I would like to someone explain to someone like me, in simple words. why anyone who plays Renegade Guard or armies in similar state should be bursting out with happiness.

I can't remember a single time you've been happy unless you finally moved to a better gaming group that that grognard one that used to club you like a baby seal.

Dude, I've been waiting 7 editions for rules for my army so get over it. You got duped into an army that was bad by people who purposefully sold it to you CUZ it was bad.

You know that making mistakes and learning from them is part of life, or maybe you dont...

I really hope that GK are redonkulously OP so that you can exact revenge on the donkey-caves who sold it to you. And I hate GK as an entity so that's saying something!

Apple fox wrote:
GW probably rely on the miserable and disappointing feelings(even if they don’t know it) they create to push people around to try new army’s and buy more, with many players feeling trapped or unable to start a new game.

Often even finding a single player can be a lot of work for other games. So moving to another faction to at least be less miserable is seen as a good option.

I don't think that's GW's plan. FOMO, sure. Making people upset to get them to switch armies seems too likely to backfire.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
GW probably rely on the miserable and disappointing feelings(even if they don’t know it) they create to push people around to try new army’s and buy more, with many players feeling trapped or unable to start a new game.

Often even finding a single player can be a lot of work for other games. So moving to another faction to at least be less miserable is seen as a good option.

I don't think that's GW's plan. FOMO, sure. Making people upset to get them to switch armies seems too likely to backfire.

I don’t think it’s planed, I think it’s entirely unintentional. But it’s effect I think is seen when people drop army’s for others over just how bad they are. Or waiting for updates so play something else just so they are not left sitting for years playing nothing.

Karol wrote:
You know what, the I hear of magical place where things go my way type of argument has been used, so many times I don't even know how to comment it.


Again don't turn this in to a me thing. You think a GSC player is happy how 9th is going on right now, or a Knight player? I just happen to have the privilage of being the owner of an army which has been bottom tier for multiple editions, that is all.

Or how about CSM, I don't care about them or their players. But I assume that if someone doesn't like to play AL or some sort of soup list with demons their army was good last time when, in 4th or 3ed?


How long can someone stay "honestly hoping for improvments"? And after how long is it okey to say, okey this army is screwed and anyone who is playing is probably on avarge not having much fun with it. Is it an edition, more then an edition ? Or does one have to wait for the army to become illegal, and then it is okey to say that bretonian players are more or less allowed to be unhappy about the shape of GW games ?

I'm building a World Eaters army (28 more Berserkers to go) and played Sisters for three editions before that so trust me I get how much having bad rules can be a kick in the teeth. I've played against power gamers, casual players and everything in between. I know I've tried to give you ideas how to have fun even when you're losing but that's gone in one ear and out the other.

And 9th edition has gone a long way to let weaker armies more playable, but I've been an active critic of GW's poor handling of not just FAQing an extra wound to CSM and Grey Knights for a while. As for the actual Knights, they need something like having them use their wounds profile as a substitute for model count for claiming objectives. I also think they should work the Apoc casualty mechanic into 40k to remove some of the feel bads that come from alpha strikes and other similar negative game experiences. But that's just my $.02 on some things the game could do better.

Lastly, I fully respect that most people can't jump armies (I know I can't afford to), but at the same time 40k isn't the only game, and even if you want to only play 40k it's not like slowly collecting a new army is all that impossible.

As for AoS, Bretonnians can still use their models to play Cities of Sigmar, even if they can't play Brets proper. AoS is a different community though who are more conversion and count-as friendly since they equip weapons across full units instead of individual models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Apple fox wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
GW probably rely on the miserable and disappointing feelings(even if they don’t know it) they create to push people around to try new army’s and buy more, with many players feeling trapped or unable to start a new game.

Often even finding a single player can be a lot of work for other games. So moving to another faction to at least be less miserable is seen as a good option.

I don't think that's GW's plan. FOMO, sure. Making people upset to get them to switch armies seems too likely to backfire.

I don’t think it’s planed, I think it’s entirely unintentional. But it’s effect I think is seen when people drop army’s for others over just how bad they are. Or waiting for updates so play something else just so they are not left sitting for years playing nothing.

I feel that happens more when talking about competitive play, but then again I feel competitive play brings the worst parts out in the game.

I actually see it more with casual players, no one likes being blown away.
Or just having a bad faction, people here like to be able to feel there mental investment has value.
They don’t want to be left every game feeling they can’t win without others not playing there best or putting in less effort.

Honestly I kind of want to leave but I don't think other game systems have the same sort of community and support that GW has. Honestly i kind of want to get into Kings of War after they nuked warhammer fantasy into a crater and still haven't given us the Old World after barely updating news about it and still won't let us play warhammer fantasy 8th in stores. It's just such an insult.

If I had to state all my problems with GW quickly it'd be: Prices, army faction imbalance, imbalanced abilities, clear army faction preferential treatment (New models, new units and being strong in the game), a weird constant shift towards younger and younger kids I never see play the game, weird aesthetic changes in models and art, a hatred of long term and hardcore fans, killing warhammer fantasy, Calling customers toxic during several different occasions and an actual gw manager saying I didn't spend enough on my armies for warhammer fantasy to show support for it to not die as well as constant changing of facts during warhammer fantasys death, changes in lore that can be dumb, constant annoying IP issues and pulling support for some older games up to the point you can't play them in their stores and others. They also used to make really shoddy gear on top of being over-priced.

Karol wrote:
You know what, the I hear of magical place where things go my way type of argument has been used, so many times I don't even know how to comment it.


Again don't turn this in to a me thing. You think a GSC player is happy how 9th is going on right now, or a Knight player? I just happen to have the privilage of being the owner of an army which has been bottom tier for multiple editions, that is all.

Or how about CSM, I don't care about them or their players. But I assume that if someone doesn't like to play AL or some sort of soup list with demons their army was good last time when, in 4th or 3ed?


How long can someone stay "honestly hoping for improvments"?
And after how long is it okey to say, okey this army is screwed and anyone who is playing is probably on avarge not having much fun with it. Is it an edition, more then an edition ?
Or does one have to wait for the army to become illegal, and then it is okey to say that bretonian players are more or less allowed to be unhappy about the shape of GW games ?

First off, Karol, your posts here are fine.
Second, your point is valid.
Third, to answer this set of questions from personal experience,
About 20 years, for me until restartes rubicons and end times Nast;
Between 4 and 6 editions;
Yes, and that depends on who you ask.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
If I had to state all my problems with GW quickly it'd be: Prices, army faction imbalance, imbalanced abilities, clear army faction preferential treatment (New models, new units and being strong in the game), a weird constant shift towards younger and younger kids I never see play the game, weird aesthetic changes in models and art, a hatred of long term and hardcore fans, killing warhammer fantasy, Calling customers toxic during several different occasions and an actual gw manager saying I didn't spend enough on my armies for warhammer fantasy to show support for it to not die as well as constant changing of facts during warhammer fantasys death, changes in lore that can be dumb, constant annoying IP issues and pulling support for some older games up to the point you can't play them in their stores and others. They also used to make really shoddy gear on top of being over-priced.

So you made a lot of points, so I'm going to try and cover them as best I can:
Prices: Yup, definitely a problem. GW needs to learn how to learn to lower prices. They do offer box deals and the starters are nice discounts but it's not enough. They need to do something about how they handle rules as well because the fast release cycle and constant book purchasing is pricing people out of the hobby.
Faction imbalance: there will always be some imbalance. The game needs it or else the game will lose it's flavor. Faction imbalances let the different factions have flavor, as well as let the meta ebb and flow so it doesn't become stale.
Faction preferential treatment: I agree GW's top down approach of making models then doing everything else definitely pushes the faction updates unevenly. They need to work on this because it's a problem. Factions should go more than every other edition in terms of getting updates.
Younger people: I hate to break it to you, but younger people are the future of the game. Without new people coming in the game will eventually die. GW has done school league programs for years in England to help foster an environment for new people to enjoy the hobby. Plus these things let parents share the game with their kids which can foster a new generation of gamers.
Aesthetic changes: If this is about Primaris, I hate to break it to you but almost nothing about them is actually new. Even Phobos armour has ties to Rogue Trader marines:

I do agree that we went through a period where the art wasn't as visually interesting but I think that has to do with how GW art basically went through a period where there was no difference in texture across the images which took some flavor out of the images, but the art direction has changed and we've been seeing different textures on different parts of the image instead of everything getting a smooth blend of light and shadow.
Hatred of long term fans: this one just reads like a bit of a persecution complex. GW isn't out to specifically attack anyone in the hobby community (beyond the weird fascist minority that seems to pop up with people like Arch).
Killing warhammer fantasy: I hate to break it to you but GW and the community killed WFB. GW did it by constantly raising prices AND creating the horde rule that incentivised 100+ model blocks AND lowering points to a ridiculous extent but the community was also incredibly toxic with a superiority complex about being the "smarter" game than 40k, and a refusal to play lower points levels. WFB dropped in sales so bad it wasn't even in the top 10 games sold in North America, with it's sales being lower than JUST the Space Marine Tactical box. ONE KIT was outselling the entire game. With that in mind it's not really a shock that the game was killed.
Toxic customer accusations: Let's be honest: there are toxic parts of the community. People like Gamza complaining about "soy" in the hobby, and Arch making videos on if black people can be Space Marines (not to mention using the N-word to describe Gnoblars in a video that was finally deleted this year) we can't pretend there aren't toxic parts of the community that need to be addressed.
Changes in lore: It's been happening since Rogue Trader. I don't know what to tell you, that's probably the only thing about the lore that hasn't changed. How "dumb" changes are really comes down to your personal tastes what you want from the setting.
IP Issues: GW has had missteps but I think they've gotten better, even if the Chapterhouse Lawsuit lead to some unfortunate reprocussions to the hobby (and the uptick of original-idea-do-not-steal naming conventions). That said IP law is a complex mess at the best of times and at least they're less toxic with their IP than Anne Rice or Disney.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...Faction imbalance: there will always be some imbalance. The game needs it or else the game will lose it's flavor. Faction imbalances let the different factions have flavor, as well as let the meta ebb and flow so it doesn't become stale...

This is a terrible argument I often find being made by people who have never played any games other than 8e/9e 40k. There will always be some imbalance, sure, but it's an incredible leap from there to claiming that GW's complete lack of effort put into balance is somehow necessary for factions to have personality. You don't have to choose between GW's piles of dead units/dead Codexes and a perfectly symmetrical game with no faction identity; I've played loads of games that managed to both have distinct faction identities and make a large percentage of the units in the game playable, including older editions of 40k.

On top of that I find GW's complete lack of interest in balancing the game dilutes faction identities far more than it strengthens them these days. I don't know about you but things like White Scars killing Knights by stabbing them in the shins with D2 knives throws the whole identity of Knights for a loop to me.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...Faction imbalance: there will always be some imbalance. The game needs it or else the game will lose it's flavor. Faction imbalances let the different factions have flavor, as well as let the meta ebb and flow so it doesn't become stale...

This is a terrible argument I often find being made by people who have never played any games other than 8e/9e 40k. There will always be some imbalance, sure, but it's an incredible leap from there to claiming that GW's complete lack of effort put into balance is somehow necessary for factions to have personality. You don't have to choose between GW's piles of dead units/dead Codexes and a perfectly symmetrical game with no faction identity; I've played loads of games that managed to both have distinct faction identities and make a large percentage of the units in the game playable, including older editions of 40k.

On top of that I find GW's complete lack of interest in balancing the game dilutes faction identities far more than it strengthens them these days. I don't know about you but things like White Scars killing Knights by stabbing them in the shins with D2 knives throws the whole identity of Knights for a loop to me.

I'm not saying that the balance is where it should be, there are too many lagging factions that need to be fixed for that. I was more addressing the idea of faction imbalance in general, not the specific state of the game. I've talked about some things I felt need to be changed and should have been FAQs a few posts back. That said I've seen a particular complaint crop up that the game should near perfectly balanced, and I don't agree. 40k doesn't need to be chess with boltguns, and I get I may not be popular for saying it, but there should be a little imbalance floating around, but that should be a lot closer than where it currently sits.

One livestream/podcast I listen to is Warhammer Weekly which deals in AoS but they often make some points I feel we should be talking about in 40k, like shooting for getting armies into a "fat middle" (usually described as somewhere between 45-65% winrates), and honestly I think that'd be a good spot for the game as a whole.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...Faction imbalance: there will always be some imbalance. The game needs it or else the game will lose it's flavor. Faction imbalances let the different factions have flavor, as well as let the meta ebb and flow so it doesn't become stale...

This is a terrible argument I often find being made by people who have never played any games other than 8e/9e 40k. There will always be some imbalance, sure, but it's an incredible leap from there to claiming that GW's complete lack of effort put into balance is somehow necessary for factions to have personality. You don't have to choose between GW's piles of dead units/dead Codexes and a perfectly symmetrical game with no faction identity; I've played loads of games that managed to both have distinct faction identities and make a large percentage of the units in the game playable, including older editions of 40k.

On top of that I find GW's complete lack of interest in balancing the game dilutes faction identities far more than it strengthens them these days. I don't know about you but things like White Scars killing Knights by stabbing them in the shins with D2 knives throws the whole identity of Knights for a loop to me.

Absolutely agree. The "Imbalance" only makes sense inside your codex, but once you look outside of it - it's a complete dog's breakfast.

As for me, I hate GW as a company. I think it is almost despicable how they treat consumers (fyi, I'm an Australian, we got that aussie tax) and their total contempt for updating older factions or maintaining that semblance of balance ruins it for me.
I paid ~$100 for that Psychic Awakening book only to get what, a reprint of the inquisition rules released months earlier in the White Dwarf? Feth GW.

That being said, I'm a big fan of the casual gaming hobby - catching up with people and using W40k as an excuse to just drink some pretzels and eat beer is great.
I'm just... disappointed seeing this constant disregard for balance and greed for $$.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
GW probably rely on the miserable and disappointing feelings(even if they don’t know it) they create to push people around to try new army’s and buy more, with many players feeling trapped or unable to start a new game.

Often even finding a single player can be a lot of work for other games. So moving to another faction to at least be less miserable is seen as a good option.

I don't think that's GW's plan. FOMO, sure. Making people upset to get them to switch armies seems too likely to backfire.

I agree, it's not GW's plan. They just disregard balance and take a "Card Rotation" approach because it prints more money.

As to the OP's original question the reason I still stick around in 40k communities is because I'm baffled and appalled at the kind of Stockholm-syndrome cheerleading I see in said communities. Wargaming doesn't have to be horrendously expensive, it doesn't have to be ruled by GW's balance dartboard, you shouldn't have to have three or four armies because only one's ever playable at a time, and you shouldn't have to sit around speculating on which of your models is going to get squatted/have their loadout disappear/get nerfed into unplayability next, but because GW is so much more visible than the rest of the industry people come into 40k and get fed this line by the GW fanboys about how all the gakky things GW does to their game and their players are par for the course and to be expected. If I decide to just feth off because I'm personally not enjoying 9th then a) I leave the 40k community without a dissenting voice, which is going to present a rosy and flattering trap to other people trying to come into 40k who might appreciate a warning before they end up as frustrated as I am, and b) more people get to assume that because GW has all the money and the shelf space they define tabletop wargaming, and I want to try and point out that there are other players in the space who are infinitely less awful to deal with.

In short: I'm not fighting the GW fanboys because I expect to convince them of anything, I'm fighting the GW fanboys because if someone else comes into the room I want them to be able to make an informed decision based on multiple viewpoints, not just get the "it's all rosy here, don't worry, just buy a new army if you're losing, edition changes that render all your stuff illegal/unplayable are a fact of life, don't worry about them!" party line.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
As to the OP's original question the reason I still stick around in 40k communities is because I'm baffled and appalled at the kind of Stockholm-syndrome cheerleading I see in said communities. Wargaming doesn't have to be horrendously expensive, it doesn't have to be ruled by GW's balance dartboard, you shouldn't have to have three or four armies because only one's ever playable at a time, and you shouldn't have to sit around speculating on which of your models is going to get squatted/have their loadout disappear/get nerfed into unplayability next, but because GW is so much more visible than the rest of the industry people come into 40k and get fed this line by the GW fanboys about how all the gakky things GW does to their game and their players are par for the course and to be expected. If I decide to just feth off because I'm personally not enjoying 9th then a) I leave the 40k community without a dissenting voice, which is going to present a rosy and flattering trap to other people trying to come into 40k who might appreciate a warning before they end up as frustrated as I am, and b) more people get to assume that because GW has all the money and the shelf space they define tabletop wargaming, and I want to try and point out that there are other players in the space who are infinitely less awful to deal with.

In short: I'm not fighting the GW fanboys because I expect to convince them of anything, I'm fighting the GW fanboys because if someone else comes into the room I want them to be able to make an informed decision based on multiple viewpoints, not just get the "it's all rosy here, don't worry, just buy a new army if you're losing, edition changes that render all your stuff illegal/unplayable are a fact of life, don't worry about them!" party line.

Look on the bright side Anomander, you'll get to live old enough to see all those fan boys eventually forget about GW or become and old grumbler.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...40k doesn't need to be chess with boltguns, and I get I may not be popular for saying it, but there should be a little imbalance floating around, but that should be a lot closer than where it currently sits...

I'm trying to point out that this is a horrible and misleading false dichotomy that gets thrown around to prop up an utterly indefensible position. NOBODY WANTS CHESS WITH BOLTGUNS. We just want to stop being told "Oh, you're losing, wait years for a new Codex/buy a different army and you'll be fine!" or "Don't buy/use the minis you like, they're bad and you'll lose!"

 aphyon wrote:


Some armies never had a place until 7th or later. i have an admech force i run in 5th edition but the codex i use is from 7th because it is the first and only compatible one. some things just have to be brought into line with 5th ed USRs

As far as editions go the core rules for 5th were the overall best but needed a few tweaks as in some of the versions in 4th or 7th for the same rule were better than they were in 5th. but importing those into 5th was very easy to do.

I liked the Witch Hunter dex, which was 3rd ed. That dex continued to be used in 4th. The game felt fine to me at the time, and if I had a friend who wanted to have a retro game, I would, and I'm sure it would be fun. The 5th ed White Dwarf dex killed the army almost as much as the lack of model support- a mistake compounded in 6th. If the 5th ed herohammer/ retro set insists on using that WD dex because those were the official rules, I can bet you don't have many sisters players at the table.

 aphyon wrote:


What it looks like to me is that your having codex issues like many people did. are group allows all codexes from 3rd-7th to be used in our 5th ed games and some obviously stand out above the others. there has never been a better lore based codex with all the build options since the 3.5 chaos codex. in fact many of the 3rd and 4th ed codexes and even a few from 5th were the high water mark for their factions.

Well first off, I'm not having Codex issues so far; I like the current version of the game and I am satisfied with the two 9th edition dexes I have so far.

3rd-5th was a decent era for most dexes; there was a kind of flexibility and customization which no longer exists- a sense of "Build your own dudes." In a lot of cases, that was good because if you had a vision of how a unit should play, you could use the "build your own" rules to get there. The Witch Hunter dex was good, but it didn't have that "build your own" feel, and as mentioned above, 5th ed killed it.

Personally, I feel that 9th has as much or more customizability, but it is a different kind of flexibility. Load-outs are nowhere near as flexible, but synergies between Warlord Traits, Chapter Tactics, Relics and Strats as well as unit auras yield a surprising number of combinations, and I feel they give more depth to unit than mere load-out options. I also like how many of these traits really do define the subfactions and/or units to which they apply: I've always said that fluff is BS- rules do a far better job of actually defining the characteristics and behaviour of a unit than a bunch of flowery adjectives and some artwork; all the novels in the world that say a certain unit behaves a certain way in battle aren't worth the paper they're printed on when the rules say it ain't so.

Adding Crusade into the mix takes customizability off the charts, and the thing about these customizations is that they have to be earned inn battle, so they mean more, and their gradual application over time builds a story in a way that picking from a list of "build your own" options at the list building stage never could. Man I can hardly wait to see what getting a chaos mark, becoming possessed, possessing others looks like once chaos gets its bespoke crusade content.

 aphyon wrote:


I also played SOB between 3rd and 4th but it was not my main army (that belonged to dark angels and tau).

So you played them when the dex was decent and the range felt somewhat current (by which I mean we got models in 3rd; I don't think we got any in 4rth, and I know we didn't in 5th or 6th; I think in 7th Forgeworld gave us to the Avenger fighter). You also likely don't play sisters now- if you did, I doubt you'd be wanting to go back in time.

 aphyon wrote:


In my book strats are garbage because you have to use a resource mechanic to enable things that were previously built in to the faction as natural abilities or equipment you could buy from the armory.

Some strats were previously available as abilities or equipment- I'm not terribly keen on those myself, to be honest. But most of my favourites were not; Blessed Bolts and Burning Descent are amazing, fluffy strats; they were never available as equipment or abilities, and they'd be far too powerful if they were. I love them because they feel like cinematic moments and story events. I can't use all of them every game- not even all of my favourites, so I really have to pick how and when to use them, which reinforces the feeling of being in a story. I also love the fact that there are subfaction specific strats to further define the characteristics and behaviour of that subfaction.

 aphyon wrote:

additionally the amount of time it adds to the game is glaring i can see why they dropped the additional 6th and 7th turns. i can get through 7 turns of our hybrid 5th ed game in the time it takes our 9th ed players to get through 3. i should note that the pandemic only briefly shut down my gaming group, so i managed to observer many games of 9th all through 2020, so this is not coming from a position of inexperience with the new edition.

I don't doubt this at Strike Force or Onslaught level. The mechanic of rerolling is more common than it ever has been, and speed rolling rerolls is a real skill, and realistically, choosing and adjudicating strats probably does add some time. But the thing about 5th is that you probably have three or four or even more years of experience gleaned at a time in your life where you had greater neuroplasticity than you do now, a decade later, whereas the greatest amount of experience you could possibly have for 9th is what, ten months? I'm not saying you're in experienced with 9th- I'm saying you're more experienced with 5th.

I also don't know if your group does what I do- which is put my strats on colour coded cards which I am constantly shuffling through and arranging based on what my opponent is doing. I also practice the crap out of speed rolling, and make sure I use dice trays.

 aphyon wrote:

Some factions had hard restrictions to make them unique stand alone armies-deathwing/ravenwing, saim hann eldar, farsight enclave tau etc..

You can still do all of these things and better in 9th; you can also do this with Every. Single. Subfaction. In. The. Game. Not just the lucky ones or the poster boys.

 aphyon wrote:

others gave you the options to build your force in line with specific subfactions by army composition and equipment for your leaders,

And yes, I too liked some of those options, I particularly LOVED Platoons for guard for example. But I feel like I have more options now than I ever did.

 aphyon wrote:


in the case of SOB rather you went puritan or radical you still had 6 orders to choose from, although it required some effort to research the fighting style and duties of each when designing your army.

See, here's what I'm talking about right here: I'll give you this- Inquisitorial Henchman were way better in those days, and I liked having elite level inquisitors in addition to HQ's. I think the only impact of the choice to be radical or puritan on your army was the selection of henchman available. And the choice between playing one order over another meant squat, no matter how much research you did there were no order traits, no warlord traits, no unique strats, no dedicated relics- nothing.

The inquisition in 9th could use some work, but there are some things I really like about them. I'm not holding my breath for it, but I hope the inquisition get a nudge this edition. It's worth pointing out that while you may have loved the Witch Hunter and Daemon Hunter dexes, you never did get an Alien Hunter book to go with it, so it isn't accurate at all to think of this as a golden age for the Inquisition. These days there are specific WL traits for Radicals, Puritans and each of the Ordos, there are specific relics and psychic abilities for Ordos; Inquisitors have two different ways they can join Imperial armies, and they can ally with ANY Imperial army, not just their respective Chambers Militant and the ubiquitous Stormtroopers.

 aphyon wrote:


Crusade is an absurdly complex campaign system that is a rework of the old 4th ed kill team campaign rules that consisted of 2 pages-a wound effects chart and an experience progression chart.

It may be absurd to you, but to me it is probably the best thing that has ever happened to the game- I've wanted something like this since I first started playing in 1989. I loved the previous kill team rules and combat patrol. Neither of them hold a candle to Crusade. Faction specific progression systems are a revolutionary development for GW that is light years ahead of Kill Team and Combat Patrol.

 aphyon wrote:


there were also loads of optional missions in the old editions such as combat patrols and kill team missions in the 4th ed rulebook that allowed the players to create their own campaign. they didn't need GW to tell them how to do it.

So in terms of missions, just for Crusade, I got 3 combat patrols, 6 Incursions, 6 Strike Forces and 3 Onslaughts and that's just from the BRB. Any of these can be modified by any Theatre of War so that even the same mission never has to feel the same way twice. I also picked up both Beyond the Veil and Plague Purge- which gave me an additional 12 of each of the four categories of missions.

And in terms of campaigns- you still very much have to build them- you just have more tools now than you've ever had before. If you prefer to create your own campaigns and missions and theatres of war, go ahead. If you choose to use some of it, go ahead. If you choose to use all of it, go ahead. You can say people don't need GW to tell them how to build campaigns, but if you're using something scratchbuilt and houseruled, you've got to find buy in. That isn't always a problem, but it can be. Telling a group: hey, I want to run an Obolis Invasion Crusade Campaign, really lets people know what to expect. But because the material is presented as layers of optional content, selecting, combining and arranging whichever resources you choose to use allows you to create a unique narrative.

There is a lot you can do with what GW has given you. Combining the Argovon campaign from WD with Beyond the Veil and Crusade was an awesome campaign, and the monthly changes in theme were brilliant. As for Charadon, we have even more to work with. There are so many options available for crafting Obolis invasions, I'd stake money that no two are exactly alike unless one is intentionally copying the successful format of the other.

 aphyon wrote:


there is nothing about 9th edition or any of it's codexes i find decent or worth my time. to me the game isn't even 40k anymore.

This is your truth; I can't change that. It sounds like you've found some people to play with who will play older versions of the game and even allow you to take models from later editions backwards- good for you. I love this version of the game, so I'll keep playing it.