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Backfire wrote:
So maybe, if you don't like mystery terrain or objectives, don't play with them??

So I'm supposed to show up to 40k night, explain to my opponent what I dislike and why, and hope they agree with me? And what if we disagree about what parts of 6th we want to use? Maybe you like having as many obstacles as possible in your path, but I prefer a game that I can play straight out of the book without having to start off every game with a round of negotiations over what house rules we're going to use.

Plus, there's the fact that "but you can always house rule it" is bad game design that any company with higher standards than GW would kill themselves out of shame over.

Testify wrote:I can understand why you'd hate 6th, but not why you'd hate 6th and NOT hate 5th. 6th very much feels like 5th++.

Vaktathi wrote:To be fair, there *was* a lot I didn't like about 5th

And this exchange really gets to the heart of it.

6th edition didn't change the game into something you don't want it to be, as it really didn't change much. No, 6th edition revealed that 40k isn't the kind of game you want to play. You just didn't realise it for some reason before.

Everybody comes into 40k with preconceptions about the game. At some point, you have to face the game as it really is. At that point, you either quit, or you change what you're expecting from the game. This happens sooner or later to everyone. In your case, it appears to have happened now.

As for people talking about the imminent demise of 40k at the hands of new, better, upstart games, it's the same as people endlessly predicting the second coming of christ or peak oil. No matter how sensible you've gotten the theory to sound in your own mind, it's not actually happening. At least, on nowhere near the time frame that's predicted.

Of course, even saying that is useless, because conspiracy theories draw true believers. I'm sure every time a tabletop game goes out of favor, people just move back the goalposts...

There's just no way 6th could be as bad as 3rd was. I was pretty hardcore into 2nd, but then 3rd came out and nerfed my entire IG armour component. Tearing 6 sets of sponsons off? No thank you.

6th seems pretty good, at least a step in the right direction. If I get bored of 40K I can always return to defending Fortress Europa as an alternative, so it doesn't really phase me anyway.

You're projecting a bit too much there. I found a lot of things wrong with 5th, 4th, etc. And yes I talked about them a lot. But 6th did change a lot, and it's not just that the game changed, but how it was changed.

We have more micromechanics, special rules, and random tables than ever before, at least in the last 14 or so years if not since Rogue Trader. The mechanics are sloppy and/or vague, it doesn't know what scale it wants to play at, and feels it needs to *force* "cinematics" rather than let them occur naturally through player actions and the whims of the dice.

The game *feels* confused and ill defined, and while this has existed in other editions, it feels magnified and intensified with 6th. 5th *definitely* had it's issues, anyone who's read my posts will know I had issues with it, but the cores rules had a better idea of what scale it wanted to be played at and how it wanted to be played. 6th can't decide if it wants to be Necromunda or Apocalypse and feels it needs printed rules for every product code GW has on the shelf, necessary or not.

Saying that 6th didn't change much is silly, it did change. Not the basic core mechanics of the statlines or turn order and things like that, but it's a radically different experience than any other edition has been.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Nope. Best edition so far.

Lethality of 2nd edition with simplified rules of 5th edition. Two good things that go great together.

That's strange, I feel that 6th is not simplified. I read the rules, and I still see a game that doesn't know which level of abstraction it want to have. Squad are an abstract concept, everyone move in battle but now, you remove casualties from the front, removing that abstraction. But a missile launcher still can't fire on a different squad, because... well it's the rule! (at least if this guy don't move, he have his full BS, which is an improvement). I have read a lots of other ruleset (Around 15), and I still think that's 40K (and WFB) are very complicated, for the sake of being complicated.

In the games I played, lethality raised by 1/6 in forest and craters (reduced cover save), and that's all. people in the open die the same way, people in ruins die the same way.


If all that was for the sake of balance, that would be good. but it's not. I know that some people don't care, but fighting a losing battle is not an interesting game for me. If I field a 1500 pts army, I should be able to build at least one list that handle 90% of my opponents armies. I don't want to pick random units and hope it will work, because, that's not what "balanced" mean. But I really don't think that an old codex is a reason to have a bad army.

I had high hope for 6th, but I agree with Vaktathi : this edition is a mix of a lots of ideas that don't always blend together, and the lack of balance is disheartening.

Like I said, I know that perfect balance is not achievable, and that's randomness is a integral part of the game. But in a game like 6th, less randomness is still a lot of randomness.

I like my army, but all it does now is looking nice on a shelve.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Instead of actually balancing codex's through actual FAQ's or updates, they've changed the rules in such a way that it effectively nerfed some of the top tier armies (or in some cases certain builds of said armies - I'm looking @ you WWP Wych cult lists) and helped those on the bottom tiers.

..Balance is bad? Since when?

Seriously, think this over, this is kinda what it looks like.

"These armies should've stayed completely top tier while NOTHING was done to balance the bottom tier armies. The edition should've made it so the Top Tier stayed Top while the bottom tiers stayed at the rock bottom."

Changing rules to benefit worked out for the best for 8th edition fantasy (Stopped DE,VC, and DoC from completely dominating the scene), it worked here too, some cases not so well however. (Like the reserves lists, I feel bad for kommando's and webways)

And for me that is the heart of the problem : you don't balance a codex by changing the core rules. if a top tier list is a problem, it is that codex (or just some units in it) that need errata. And GW is very good at finding 3 solutions to a problem, and apply all 3 when one would have been enough, resulting in an opposing problem.

Vaktathi, I kinda understand from where you are coming.

After playing my Tau all through 4th ed and 5th ed, I am finding that I'm struggling with a certain amount of apathy towards 6th ed. What gets me is that this edition is being very friendly to my preferred army and the latest round of faqs especially so.

Yet, I am having trouble mustering up the desire to play. Whats wrong here? They brought back tactical/movement based positioning for effective shooting that was miing from 5th. The game should be more tactical, yet after a few games I am very meh.

Seriously, what is wrong here? I really want to like 6th ed.



After much consideration, I really feel that GW has ruined the look and playablity aesthetic of the game with too much book keeping. Having a couple of multi-wound models to keep track of wasn't bad...neither was a damage marker on a vehicle.

But now, we have multi-wound vehicles that need both damage and HP's of which the players now have to keep track.
The number of multi-wound models/units has noticeably increased.
We have units that can alter another units abilities/stats for the rest of the game as opposed to just a single turn effect.
There are random affects that last a random number of game turns.

I see players trying to cope with all of the added book keeping via note pads, dice as markers, premade damage markers and even through the use of coloured stickers. This leaves the table looking a mess and creates constant interuptions in the game concrning things like (Wasn't that your marker dice for that vehicle? Or, What does that sticker mean? and, Is that unit still on fire?

For a game trying to be cinematic, GW sure did add a lot of emmersion breaking book keeping to the game.

For a game trying to forge a narrative, not a lot gets forged when there are constant delays in the game to figure out what unit is still being affected by which random effect.



Lastly, it comes down to the complete and utter nonsense that 40K is "Not Meant To Be a Competitive Game". Bollocks! Its a game that has a mechanism for that determines a winner and a loser for each match. If some one wants to play and not keep score, fine. But don't try to pass off poor in-game faction balance as something good because it is "cinematic".
If The designers really believed the "40k is not a competition oriented game" BS the were spouting at games day, then they should just remove the Winner-Loser mechanic and instead tell everyone to hug and give each other a trophy after the game.

If my words in the last paragraph offend the CGM, tough. I as a casual player have become absolutely fed up the Fluffers attitude that something balanced and competitive can not be fun for both players. I find Chess fun, same for dominoes.
Like chess, dominoes and many other balanced games or sports, when I win it should be through player skill, not bad luck or my opponents army having been recently nerfed via faq/errata. When I lose, I am happy when I know that we both played well and that the deciding factor was that my opponent was the better general that day.

I am not happy when I feel like either my opponents army or mine had no real chance, no matter what decisions we made in game. Why is this, you may ask? Its because I have laid out considerable money on a game system designed to be played in a competitive style/format.
If a chosen faction has no real chance against faction x, then I feel like I have wasted my time building the army, wasted more time playing in a lop-sided match, wasted my money purchasing the army and, that on some level, I've been ripped off by the company that is supposed to be making a fun casually competitive game.

(/rant)


edit for dropped sentence

Yeah, a lot of it doesn't feel well thought out or well explained. A lot of 6e leaves various codices in awkward places which is frustrating and many of the FAQ rulings feel completely wtf (markerlights vs FMC, etc) and entirely based on the dev's wish to force various coddices to play the way they envision regardless of the BRB they just dropped. I personally have gotten tired enough of GW's crappy balancing, disinterest in resolving common player concerns and generally treating their customers with disrespect (aka $boner) that I do not buy GW stuff unless it's second hand, the last 1750ish points I've purchased sent not a penny to GW. I love the old school fluff and visuals, just as I did 15 years ago when I stumbled across 40k, but there comes a time when you have to vote with your wallet to say ,"enough of this bs, deliver the goods or feth off!" That being said, mates can buy second hand and house-rule to their heart's contents, it's GW's loss.

 Ailaros wrote:
6th edition didn't change the game into something you don't want it to be, as it really didn't change much. No, 6th edition revealed that 40k isn't the kind of game you want to play. You just didn't realise it for some reason before.

I don't think this is true at all. 6th edition added a lot of objectionable things that weren't in 5th:

1) "Cinematic" over and over again as an excuse for not investing the effort required to design good rules.

2) Random tables for everything. Mysterious terrain, mysterious objectives, mysterious psychic powers, mysterious warlord traits. What's next, rolling on a random table to find out what weapons your squad gets?

3) Challenges. Why yes, my entire 30-man squad would like to stand idle and "offer encouragement" instead of just shooting you in the back for being stupid enough to try to fight a duel. And it's so "cinematic" for the best reason to fight a duel to be sacrificing a cheap sergeant to keep a powerful melee character from contributing to the fight.

4) Wound allocation. 5th edition wound allocation was exploitable, but at least you could still resolve it quickly. 6th edition wound allocation starts slow and goes straight to horrible if you have stuff like mixed barrage/non-barrage wounds (thank dog they did something about multiple shot barrages), LOS with mixed saves, key models that are close enough in distance that you have to measure again every time a model dies to see if the melta gun or the meatshield gets to take the next wound, etc. And of course it's so cinematic that my unit of veteran troops has to focus all of its fire on the idiot with a chainsword standing in front instead of just ignoring him and shooting the plasma gunner. Just like it's so cinematic for the best way of getting to that plasma gunner to be parking a Rhino in front of my squad so they can't see the front model, or to wrap a string of models around the side so one model is closest to my target model and the bullets from the rest of my squad magically bend around much closer models to hit the "closest" one.

5) Flyers. 5th edition, for all its flaws, was a complete game, with every army getting every required unit type. Most sane companies would release a new unit type (and its counters) equally across all factions. GW, on the other hand, would rather give them out one at a time over who knows how long, and too bad if you play one of the armies that doesn't get a flyer or AA yet. And of course they also won't take the obvious option of putting a giant "FW IS LEGAL YOU " notice in the main rulebook, so even if you try to use your FW AA units to fix this problem your opponent is probably going to whine and cry about how FW is "not official" so they can table you with flyerspam.

6) Allies. Why introduce allies as a balanced element across all armies when you can make the rules "fluffy" and screw over armies that "shouldn't" have allies (sorry Tyranid player) but simultaneously do stuff like allowing Black Templars to ally with Eldar (xenos witches? No problem!) or Farsight Tau ally with orks. And why ensure that ally interactions are consistent when you can have DE benefiting from Eldar fortune, while an IG CCS can't issue orders to an allied Elysian squad? The whole thing is just a complete mess and has no place in standard 40k.


Are these flaws enough to make someone who loved 5th quit the game entirely? Probably not, but there are definitely new things to dislike about 6th that weren't present in 5th.

 Peregrine wrote:

1) "Cinematic" over and over again as an excuse for not investing the effort required to design good rules.

2) Random tables for everything. Mysterious terrain, mysterious objectives, mysterious psychic powers, mysterious warlord traits. What's next, rolling on a random table to find out what weapons your squad gets?

3) Challenges. Why yes, my entire 30-man squad would like to stand idle and "offer encouragement" instead of just shooting you in the back for being stupid enough to try to fight a duel. And it's so "cinematic" for the best reason to fight a duel to be sacrificing a cheap sergeant to keep a powerful melee character from contributing to the fight.

4) Wound allocation. 5th edition wound allocation was exploitable, but at least you could still resolve it quickly. 6th edition wound allocation starts slow and goes straight to horrible if you have stuff like mixed barrage/non-barrage wounds (thank dog they did something about multiple shot barrages), LOS with mixed saves, key models that are close enough in distance that you have to measure again every time a model dies to see if the melta gun or the meatshield gets to take the next wound, etc. And of course it's so cinematic that my unit of veteran troops has to focus all of its fire on the idiot with a chainsword standing in front instead of just ignoring him and shooting the plasma gunner. Just like it's so cinematic for the best way of getting to that plasma gunner to be parking a Rhino in front of my squad so they can't see the front model, or to wrap a string of models around the side so one model is closest to my target model and the bullets from the rest of my squad magically bend around much closer models to hit the "closest" one.

5) Flyers. 5th edition, for all its flaws, was a complete game, with every army getting every required unit type. Most sane companies would release a new unit type (and its counters) equally across all factions. GW, on the other hand, would rather give them out one at a time over who knows how long, and too bad if you play one of the armies that doesn't get a flyer or AA yet. And of course they also won't take the obvious option of putting a giant "FW IS LEGAL YOU " notice in the main rulebook, so even if you try to use your FW AA units to fix this problem your opponent is probably going to whine and cry about how FW is "not official" so they can table you with flyerspam.

6) Allies. Why introduce allies as a balanced element across all armies when you can make the rules "fluffy" and screw over armies that "shouldn't" have allies (sorry Tyranid player) but simultaneously do stuff like allowing Black Templars to ally with Eldar (xenos witches? No problem!) or Farsight Tau ally with orks. And why ensure that ally interactions are consistent when you can have DE benefiting from Eldar fortune, while an IG CCS can't issue orders to an allied Elysian squad? The whole thing is just a complete mess and has no place in standard 40k.

Are these flaws enough to make someone who loved 5th quit the game entirely? Probably not, but there are definitely new things to dislike about 6th that weren't present in 5th.

Funnily enough, nearly all in your list is a boon in my books. I like challenges, I think they're fun. 5th edition "hidden fist" stuff was stupid and annoying. I'm not big on random tables, but most of them can be happily ignored. I'm not sure I see why it is a big deal that not every army has Flyers. Hey, not every army has Monstrous creatures, skimmers, bikes, Nids don't have vehicles at all, Tau have no Psykers. So where exactly were "complete armies" of 5th edition? I like allies, though I think that the Ally matrix is bit too benign. Now if I want to start say, Black Templars, I don't have to buy 1500 points worth of stuff to get them on the field.

I guess it depends what you played. I played Tau, and for me, 5th edition was pain. 4+ cover saves everywhere meant that your shooting was ineffective. Wound allocation was horribly easy to abuse against shooty armies. Anything not Railgun was ineffective against vehicles. It was laughably easy for large squads to multi-assault you, and wipe out half your army in one fell swoop. "O Shas'ui, those nasty Orks are running towards us, and are about to charge, should we shoot them? -No, instead lets move towards them so that all of them surely get to hit us." There was no defence whatsoever against Space Magic. Yeah, I think 6th edition is an improvement.

Vaktathi wrote: The game can't decide if it wants to be a skirmish ruleset, a company level wargame, an RPG, a platoon level wargame, or something else altogether. It can't decide if it wants to be GrimDark or HeroHammer. As a result of these things it comes off as clunky and confused, especially with regards to existing armies.

This really cuts to the heart of it. All the clunky mechanics, lack of balance, and clear money-making ambitions aside, the game at its heart is a confused mess.

I'm actually starting a new 15mm sci-fi game myself, Dark Century, and I've been working on a blog for it. Funny enough, I'm in the middle of a series of posts that try to address this exact problem with 40k, which is what has led me to work on my own game. Go easy on me, the game is chugging right along in closed rule testing and models are progressing but I've got a lot of work left to do, especially on the marketing/web presence.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone! There are other people out there who are getting tired of the mess that 40k has always been.

Backfire wrote:

Funnily enough, nearly all in your list is a boon in my books. I like challenges, I think they're fun. 5th edition "hidden fist" stuff was stupid and annoying.

Anymore than 'hidden missile launchers'? They're the only real punch most such units have and being able to pick it out easily denudes many units of their teeth very easily.

I'm not big on random tables, but most of them can be happily ignored.

Only if your opponent consents however, and that's the issue.

I'm not sure I see why it is a big deal that not every army has Flyers. Hey, not every army has Monstrous creatures, skimmers, bikes, Nids don't have vehicles at all, Tau have no Psykers. So where exactly were "complete armies" of 5th edition?

The issue is that none of those other unit types require a similar unit to destroy them. You don't need an MC to kill an MC. You generally need a flyer to engage another flyer, or specialized AA units that are even more rare. It was one thing when flyers used FW rules and they were more expensive and almost all AV10 with a few AV11 exceptions, not AV11/12 by default and 40-50% cheaper in many instances.

I like allies, though I think that the Ally matrix is bit too benign. Now if I want to start say, Black Templars, I don't have to buy 1500 points worth of stuff to get them on the field.

The issue is that they're highly unbalanced. In some ways this makes sense, but when one army has 7 battle brothers and can ally with almost every army in the game and another can't ally with anyone at all, and they provide access to additional FoC slots meaning more big guns/troops/etc, they're very unbalanced.

I guess it depends what you played. I played Tau, and for me, 5th edition was pain. 4+ cover saves everywhere meant that your shooting was ineffective. Wound allocation was horribly easy to abuse against shooty armies. Anything not Railgun was ineffective against vehicles. It was laughably easy for large squads to multi-assault you, and wipe out half your army in one fell swoop. "O Shas'ui, those nasty Orks are running towards us, and are about to charge, should we shoot them? -No, instead lets move towards them so that all of them surely get to hit us." There was no defence whatsoever against Space Magic. Yeah, I think 6th edition is an improvement.

And yet the most powerful armies in the game by most accounts were shooting oriented armies, not CC armies. Yeah wound allocation was silly and had it's issues, but the top armies of 5E by most people's estimation were those primarily reliant on heavy shooting elements. You had SW lists with 20something 48" range S8+ weapons, IG mech gunlines, Mech BA with half a dozen razorbacks and 3-4 Fast AV13 tanks, and Psybolt spam Grey Knights, with Autocannons, short ranged Meltaguns and Krak Missiles being the most favored tank killing weapons in the game as opposed to S9/10 weapons.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

Vaktathi wrote: The game can't decide if it wants to be a skirmish ruleset, a company level wargame, an RPG, a platoon level wargame, or something else altogether. It can't decide if it wants to be GrimDark or HeroHammer. As a result of these things it comes off as clunky and confused, especially with regards to existing armies.

This really cuts to the heart of it. All the clunky mechanics, lack of balance, and clear money-making ambitions aside, the game at its heart is a confused mess.

I'm actually starting a new 15mm sci-fi game myself, Dark Century, and I've been working on a blog for it. Funny enough, I'm in the middle of a series of posts that try to address this exact problem with 40k, which is what has led me to work on my own game. Go easy on me, the game is chugging right along in closed rule testing and models are progressing but I've got a lot of work left to do, especially on the marketing/web presence.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone! There are other people out there who are getting tired of the mess that 40k has always been.

I'm always down to try a new game, I'd love to take a look at a new system

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
[quote=Vaktathi 475128 4745845 2639c6bd2a42e714227b06646829d6ea.jpgThe game can't decide if it wants to be a skirmish ruleset, a company level wargame, an RPG, a platoon level wargame, or something else altogether. It can't decide if it wants to be GrimDark or HeroHammer. As a result of these things it comes off as clunky and confused, especially with regards to existing armies.

This really cuts to the heart of it. All the clunky mechanics, lack of balance, and clear money-making ambitions aside, the game at its heart is a confused mess.

I'm actually starting a new 15mm sci-fi game myself, Dark Century, and I've been working on a blog for it. Funny enough, I'm in the middle of a series of posts that try to address this exact problem with 40k, which is what has led me to work on my own game. Go easy on me, the game is chugging right along in closed rule testing and models are progressing but I've got a lot of work left to do, especially on the marketing/web presence.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone! There are other people out there who are getting tired of the mess that 40k has always been.

If its done, let us know!

In fact, what I would expect from GW is a streamlined game with streamlined rules leaving ''cinematic effects'' aside.

I've only played 40k for about two years, but I find 6th Ed to be a lot of fun. I like the allies rules, and I think the new wound allocation rules are more logical, and offer more tactical options. The way it was done it 5th really annoyed me. I was not a fan of the 'hidden powerfist / melta / heavy weapon'.

Dark Phoenix wrote:That's strange, I feel that 6th is not simplified. I read the rules, and I still see a game that doesn't know which level of abstraction it want to have. Squad are an abstract concept, everyone move in battle but now, you remove casualties from the front, removing that abstraction. But a missile launcher still can't fire on a different squad, because... well it's the rule!

That's not the game being complicated; that's you overcomplicating it by thinking into everything as if it is meant to represent something real.

 Peregrine wrote:

I don't think this is true at all. 6th edition added a lot of objectionable things that weren't in 5th:

1) "Cinematic" over and over again as an excuse for not investing the effort required to design good rules.

2) Random tables for everything. Mysterious terrain, mysterious objectives, mysterious psychic powers, mysterious warlord traits. What's next, rolling on a random table to find out what weapons your squad gets?

3) Challenges. Why yes, my entire 30-man squad would like to stand idle and "offer encouragement" instead of just shooting you in the back for being stupid enough to try to fight a duel. And it's so "cinematic" for the best reason to fight a duel to be sacrificing a cheap sergeant to keep a powerful melee character from contributing to the fight.

4) Wound allocation. 5th edition wound allocation was exploitable, but at least you could still resolve it quickly. 6th edition wound allocation starts slow and goes straight to horrible if you have stuff like mixed barrage/non-barrage wounds (thank dog they did something about multiple shot barrages), LOS with mixed saves, key models that are close enough in distance that you have to measure again every time a model dies to see if the melta gun or the meatshield gets to take the next wound, etc. And of course it's so cinematic that my unit of veteran troops has to focus all of its fire on the idiot with a chainsword standing in front instead of just ignoring him and shooting the plasma gunner. Just like it's so cinematic for the best way of getting to that plasma gunner to be parking a Rhino in front of my squad so they can't see the front model, or to wrap a string of models around the side so one model is closest to my target model and the bullets from the rest of my squad magically bend around much closer models to hit the "closest" one.

5) Flyers. 5th edition, for all its flaws, was a complete game, with every army getting every required unit type. Most sane companies would release a new unit type (and its counters) equally across all factions. GW, on the other hand, would rather give them out one at a time over who knows how long, and too bad if you play one of the armies that doesn't get a flyer or AA yet. And of course they also won't take the obvious option of putting a giant "FW IS LEGAL YOU " notice in the main rulebook, so even if you try to use your FW AA units to fix this problem your opponent is probably going to whine and cry about how FW is "not official" so they can table you with flyerspam.

6) Allies. Why introduce allies as a balanced element across all armies when you can make the rules "fluffy" and screw over armies that "shouldn't" have allies (sorry Tyranid player) but simultaneously do stuff like allowing Black Templars to ally with Eldar (xenos witches? No problem!) or Farsight Tau ally with orks. And why ensure that ally interactions are consistent when you can have DE benefiting from Eldar fortune, while an IG CCS can't issue orders to an allied Elysian squad? The whole thing is just a complete mess and has no place in standard 40k.


Are these flaws enough to make someone who loved 5th quit the game entirely? Probably not, but there are definitely new things to dislike about 6th that weren't present in 5th.

This sums up many issues I have with 6th and GWs approach to making a good game. In addition of course is the poor balance internally and externally with many dexes. 5th certainly had many problems as well but it would have been nice to see GW move forward with the game and correct the problems with 5th while adding some new elements. I'm not a big fan of flyers for the scale of 40k, but if they are included, balanced across all armies and the rules decent than I will be fine with it. But as so many have pointed out GW handled this in a haphazard fashion so some armies have a few or flyer spam and some armies have little to combat it. IMO, much of it always comes down to whether the rules are relatively balanced. Any close group of players can house-rule anything regardless of what GW says. Each army does not need to have the exact same things but need ways to deal with other armies, as someone said it doesn't matter if I have MCs in my army as long as I have reasonable ways to deal with them. Allies are another example of poor balance. How can anyone argue that some armies getting access to many other units from different armies while tyranids get access to noone with nothing to compensate is fair, balanced or fun.

Come on, things really didnt' change that much. There is still a movement phase before a shooting phase before an assault phase. Models still move 6", and deploy in the same way they did in 5th. The to-hit and to-wound system is almost exactly the same. Models still have the same statlines. It's the exact same game with a few small issues resolved and a few new things lightly draped on.

Just like 4th -> 5th, and just like 5th -> 6th.

The only things they really added were fliers and allies. Everything else is just a little bit of window dressing added on, or are new ways to handle old, broken rules.

Everything else that people complain about, from "sloppy", and "uncompetitive" rules, to codices that come out on an uneven time scale and are "hideously unbalanced", and models that are more expensive in the past, and a whole host of other things have ALWAYS been part of 40k. If they weren't game-breaking before, then it's your attitude towards the game that has changed.

I seriously doubt that anyone here is such a brittle person that the addition of challenges is suddenly a deal-breaker to boot people out of 40k. Much more likely, it's the straw that broke the camel's back. Put another way, you already didn't like 40k, and you were just a couple of tiny changes away from realising the full implications of it.

Ailaros wrote:I seriously doubt that anyone here is such a brittle person that the addition of challenges is suddenly a deal-breaker to boot people out of 40k. Much more likely, it's the straw that broke the camel's back. Put another way, you already didn't like 40k, and you were just a couple of tiny changes away from realising the full implications of it.

This is basically it. 40k has had the same problems since 2nd Edition (whereas 2nd Edition had its own set of problems lol). I would argue that each new edition has stressed the underlying framework of the game even more by attempting to increase the scale and scope of our armies, without any streamlining or simplification to make this sensible.

Godless-Mimicry wrote:That's not the game being complicated; that's you overcomplicating it by thinking into everything as if it is meant to represent something real.

No, it's really a matter of game design. A "skirmish" level game generally has a small number of models acting relatively independently from one another, with more detailed rules. A "tactical" level game deals with groups of models as whole units in larger armies and focuses on their battlefield interaction as groups, rather than following individual infantry. 40k has always tried to have it both ways, using skirmish-scale models at tactical-level numbers of troops with a hybrid of both types of rules.

Thus the two biggest problems: you are buying tons of expensive plastic and putting it on a table that's generally too small to have a good tactical battle, considering the scale of your models and the number you're deploying. Furthermore, you're moving and using large numbers of models when most of them are essentially wound counters because they can't act independently from their squad.

It's cinematic, it's characterful, it's extremely profitable, but it isn't really a good wargame.

I love 6th edition, love it love it. I lust it in fact. I am an army guy, I like using multiple armies, I love Apoc because I get to use multiple armies, an now with the allies rule I can do that on a regular basis. Don't have to take lousy Kroot with my Tau as a way to slow my opponent now I can chuck Belial and a bunch of Assault Terminators at the enemy. It is kind of a cop out for the designers at GW, because now if a Codex has a weakness (such as CC with Tau) you can make up for it with allies. As to the added cost, its not bad. To add 11 Thunder hammer/Storm Shield terminators to my Tau or Imp Guard lists is a little over a 100 bucks, or cheaper if you dig around online.

 Ailaros wrote:
Come on, things really didnt' change that much. There is still a movement phase before a shooting phase before an assault phase. Models still move 6", and deploy in the same way they did in 5th. The to-hit and to-wound system is almost exactly the same. Models still have the same statlines. It's the exact same game with a few small issues resolved and a few new things lightly draped on.

Yes, the core mechanics remain the same, nobody is arguing this. But that's like going from one computer to another and saying "well, it's got an Intel CPU and Windows, it's the same thing" when one may be running Win2000 loaded with spyware and kids games and the other is running Win7 with nothing installed. The experience of useage is *very* different (note: I'm not attaching any value judgements to anything with my previous analogy, simply trying to describe a difference in experiences with similar underlying commonalities).

The only things they really added were fliers and allies. Everything else is just a little bit of window dressing added on, or are new ways to handle old, broken rules.

And random tables, a greater focus on per-model importance and individual wargear, even more special rules, fortifications, mysterious terrain, etc while looking to expand the size and scope of the game being played as made apparent with 2 FoC's at 2000pts.

Everything else that people complain about, from "sloppy", and "uncompetitive" rules, to codices that come out on an uneven time scale and are "hideously unbalanced", and models that are more expensive in the past, and a whole host of other things have ALWAYS been part of 40k. If they weren't game-breaking before, then it's your attitude towards the game that has changed.

Yes they've always exited, 6E seems to exacerbate these issues more than 5th did however. 6th is a much greater change than 5th or 4th were from each other or from 3rd.

I seriously doubt that anyone here is such a brittle person that the addition of challenges is suddenly a deal-breaker to boot people out of 40k. Much more likely, it's the straw that broke the camel's back. Put another way, you already didn't like 40k, and you were just a couple of tiny changes away from realising the full implications of it.

Again, you are projecting here. It's not just challenges. It's that suddenly there's challenges, more special rules, the exact blade type of your weapons matter, you've got flyers and flying MC's, half a dozen random tables used every game for mission setup, expanded FoC's and an increased emphasis on game size, along with a very large change in the way CC functions more radical than anything seen since the 2E-3E changeover in terms of how you get into CC, when you can charge, how weapons work, overwatch, and a similarly radical overhaul of the vehicle rules, etc. These are things that fundamentally change the way the game is played in ways not seen since the 2E/3E reboot, while trying to hamfistedly still use the same army lists and rules. On top of that we have a greater focus on the tactical and even personal element while the game is trying to push a more strategic size and scale.

Simply put, we've got a ruleset that doesn't know what it wants to be that's been implemented without any real support.

Vaktathi wrote:Simply put, we've got a ruleset that doesn't know what it wants to be that's been implemented without any real support.

... but this is how it's always been. If it's only starting to bother you now, it's not because of a sudden change.

You say things have fundamentally changed, when the fundamentals of the game are exactly the same. It's why I'm saying that you just didn't see the fundamentals for what they really are, and have been all along.

Backfire wrote:

 Hückleberry wrote:
6th edition has pretty much killed my competitive drive for warhammer 40k(going to bigger GT events on the west coast). I have just been playing and running local stuff around my area. I'm kind of meh at the moment as far as the rules go but after reading and playing through a couple of 6th ed games when the rules first came out I knew instantly that there were too many random variables for me to make the effort to attend major GTs.

Funnily enough, I think that 6th edition is no more random than the 5th. It's just that people look at all the random stuff which is added (much of it optional) and miss all the randomness which is reduced.

For example, in the 5th what nearly always happened in objective matches was that in the end of turn 5 movement, 2nd player would drive a vehicle to contest the objective. Then dice was rolled, and whole match came down to a dice roll whether game continued so first player had a chance to destroy the vehicle. This was really lame, very random, and it is almost completely gone now.

True, but that was also just one aspect of 5th that was random. The optional part of all the new stuff is what is going to kill competitive play( at least it is what did it for me) for example There are two game stores realativley close to where I live. One plays with everything in the rulebook mysterious terrain, forts, allies, the whole nine yards. The other store has very strict limitations on what you can bring, 1flyer, 1 fort, no allies. So basically if I want to play at both stores, which I usually do, I have to build basically 2 completely different armies where as before I could show up to both stores with the same army list and play in tourneys or pick up games no problems.

 Ailaros wrote:

... but this is how it's always been. If it's only starting to bother you now, it's not because of a sudden change.

It's been greatly exacerbated in both directions however, more of an importance on the micro scale, larger array of macro options, the gap is more real, and more noticeable, than it has ever been before. We've got a greater inclusion of skirmish scale mechanics than at any other point in almost 15 years, but at the same time have a renewed emphasis on larger and larger games with expanded FoC unit selections and unit types available. And it's all been done in such a way that really doesn't fit the existing armies particularly well, leaving many in a much more awkward position than previous edition changes have.

You say things have fundamentally changed, when the fundamentals of the game are exactly the same. It's why I'm saying that you just didn't see the fundamentals for what they really are, and have been all along.

The most core fundamentals have stayed the same, the statlines and turn phases, but many other things have radically changed making for a much different experience. The same way different cars can have the same chassis and engine but look, drive and feel like completely different automobiles depending on what else is included and how the rest is produced.

Sorry to be blunt, Vaktathi, but your options are:

1) Roll with it.

2) Quit.

There is really nothing more to say on the matter.

I think what killed it for you, and what Ailaros is getting at, is that you tolerated 5th editon....barely. You knew about the mech spam, the wound allocation abuse, over-powered GKs, etc and thought 6th would be an excellent opportunity for GW to fix all that and make the game we all hoped to see. Instead, they got rid of a lot of the old issues, and just replaced them with new problems. Now we have flyer/skyfire imbalance, challenge oddities, random tables galore and they've just replaced one set of problems with a new set. You are disappointed in a missed opportunity on GWs part really.

Given a few more months and a codex or 2 from GWs part, and we might see some of these issues smooth out (Remember nob bikes in early 5th? Where were they after a year or so?) and a whole new sub-set of problems.

The FAQ updates are interesting, but I don't think we will be seeing any more for months, if not years for most armies.

As it is, I haven't played any 6th edition either, but that's due to a lack of opponents, and my local tournament scene adding painting, comp and sportsmanship to their scoring.

Sorry to be blunt, Vaktathi, but your options are:

1) Roll with it.

2) Quit.

There is really nothing more to say on the matter.

Deal with it or GTFO? Really? That's not helpful at all.

 Carnage43 wrote:

Sorry to be blunt, Vaktathi, but your options are:

1) Roll with it.

2) Quit.

There is really nothing more to say on the matter.

Deal with it or GTFO? Really? That's not helpful at all.

Neither is you telling me that. I am being serious. Can you name the other options? Will all three pages of this thread make one shred of difference? As far as I can see from Vaktathi's posts on both here and Warseer, in about 6,000 posts, probably more than 5,000 of them have been complaining about one thing or another. And I already mentioned earlier in this thread that it's probably time for him to quit 40k if he is so unhappy. It seems the logical choice to me.

And I didn't say "deal with it or GTFO". You put those words in my mouth.

Name the options available other than what I stated, please. If there are any, please help brother Vaktathi with his perpetual 40k angst. I simply don't see any further discussion yielding any fruit.

As this is the 40k General Discussion forum, I think a post criticizing perceived flaws in 40k is totally appropriate, and an interesting discussion post-6th. Trying to stifle discussion by saying "put up with it or GTFO" doesn't really add anything (I mean duh, you either play the game or you don't).

I mean, maybe the discussion helps some people realize what they like or don't like about the game. Maybe it leads some people to look into other game companies. Maybe it educates people on different aspects of wargame design. I imagine many users here, and wargamers in general, have never really stepped outside the 40k bubble. For them, these discussions can be especially illuminating. But instead of being constructive, you're basically crapping all over this thread.

I like 6th. When I read the rules I thought it would take days to play a game but in practice it wasn't so bad. Only thing I don't like is Challenges. I just wish that whole section wasn't even in there.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:

Name the options available other than what I stated, please. If there are any, please help brother Vaktathi with his perpetual 40k angst. I simply don't see any further discussion yielding any fruit.

Back in the old days, conversation could and was once used to illuminate things in a new light or convince others to take a viewpoint they would not have previously considered. This may be one of those times when that would have been appropriate.

Unfortunately, that's no longer an acceptable use of language.


Me? feth this edition, still. The only games I've actually won so far are, paradoxically, with my Nids. The new rules are frustrating, and it's ironic I say that, because I actually like a lot of them, on paper at least. I remember getting angry at 5th edition when I first learned to play and I found out that, for example, the exposed guy with the missile launcher was going to be the last one to die, or that by firing more guns into a squad, I was dealing less damage. Neither of those are concerns now.

But then came the bloat. Pages of extra charts to roll on. Much beleaguered allies rules are back. Awkward new rules for melee combat. Terrain as purchasable units. Random everything just brings the game further away from chess and closer to Candyland. Now, add imbalance and ambiguity from faqs. It's not hard to see why people would be a little frustrated. All gift-wrapped in a little package that tries to make you feel bad for trying to deal with it, because hey, it's a casual friendly game, right?

...I'm still working on wrapping my head around it all. I don't blame anyone else for being fed up with it all.

Again, you are projecting here. It's not just challenges. It's that suddenly there's challenges, more special rules, the exact blade type of your weapons matter, you've got flyers and flying MC's, half a dozen random tables used every game for mission setup, expanded FoC's and an increased emphasis on game size, along with a very large change in the way CC functions more radical than anything seen since the 2E-3E changeover in terms of how you get into CC, when you can charge, how weapons work, overwatch, and a similarly radical overhaul of the vehicle rules, etc. These are things that fundamentally change the way the game is played in ways not seen since the 2E/3E reboot, while trying to hamfistedly still use the same army lists and rules. On top of that we have a greater focus on the tactical and even personal element while the game is trying to push a more strategic size and scale.

Simply put, we've got a ruleset that doesn't know what it wants to be that's been implemented without any real support.

The ruleset knows exactly what it wants to be - a large scale strategic game with strong tactical/heroic elements. Read what you wrote above and you've got it. Most of the rule changes are, frankly, better. vehicles work better, the USR's work better, the changes to power weapons are not quite what I would have done but I like differentiating them. Most of the problems people are having are due to the fact that they (quite obviously) could not update all the codexes at the same time. I understand that, and I don 't mind it - you could never make any changes if you had to wait to update all codexes, and everything is still playable. The FAQ's have been released on a good schedule and have cleared up many of the early questions.

I don't like the random elements, but obviously the designers wanted them there. They are not a product of confusion. I don't like allies because they dilute the variety inherent in fighting different armies and are not especially fluffy, but as far as them breaking the game - no. Flyers are an issue for a few months, maybe half a year, and then a few flyers and AA rules waves in WD will remove the problem. No big deal at all. There's plenty in the new ruleset I would change, but they are small changes to ideas I largely approve of (being unable to use the characters lead/morale effecting USR's being the only negative effect to refusing a challenge, for instance).

Hollowman wrote:

The ruleset knows exactly what it wants to be - a large scale strategic game with strong tactical/heroic elements. Read what you wrote above and you've got it. Most of the rule changes are, frankly, better. vehicles work better, the USR's work better, the changes to power weapons are not quite what I would have done but I like differentiating them.

40k is certainly a large-scale strategic game, in the sense that most of the battle really happens in your list-building (or choice of codex in the first place). It does have strong heroic elements for sure. That right there should give you cause for concern - it's a large scale, strategic game that focuses on individual exploits? Those two are directly at odds with each other.

And as for tactical elements, 40k is very weak on tactics. Once the models hit the table, it's very much a game of making sure you match up weapon A versus target B and getting your close combat units into combat as fast as possible/keeping your weak units away from the enemy. Real combined arms tactics or synergy between units is rare, fire-and-maneuver is practically non-existent, and the morale system is a total joke.

You're right though, 40k does know exactly what it wants to be - a very complex system requiring you to constantly reshuffle your units to react to new imbalances and wacky rules, while encouraging you to put more and more plastic on the table in every battle. In other words, a cash cow for Games Workshop.