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When I play a game of 40k, I feel that a battle is actually being fought.

When I watch a game of Fantasy, I also feel a battle is actually being fought.

I feel the same when I watch or play a game of LotR, Kings of War, SAGA, etc.

However, for me, HoMachine (as I like to call it) does not feel like a Wargame. It's very fun, yes, but it doesn't feel like a clash between to armies, especially when the army/armies field a bunch of Warjacks or Warbeasts.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Funny, I when I watch a game of 40k I wonder why the armies (including tanks and artillery) have walked up to spitting distance before doing anything to each other, and why flying models seems to be hovering around a tiny patch of land instead of properly using their mobility. In short, nothing what I'd expect even a modern battle to look like, let alone a futuristic one.

Yep, for me it's 40k that feels nonsensical for the same reasons Riquende outlined.

Always found wargaming a bit of an abstract, probably why the largest scale i game with is 20mm for skirmish type games, preferring 10mm for any sort of massed battle... it just makes the ranges seem a little less silly and the extra numbers make it really feel like something is going on.

Bolt Action at 20mm is perhaps the closest i have come to feeling like a real battle is going on, mainly because the random activation actually makes a fight ebb and flow with lots of little narratives, the great pinning system helps to.

Your turn then my turn only makes it even less like a battle is going on in my mind, to many units sat around never reacting to the enemies movements.

Wargames range from the game end to the simulation end of the spectrum.

Personally I would say that 40K/WHFB is as much a game as Warmachine, and there is nothing wrong with that.

It's not so much the mechanics I'm talking about but the feel of the game. To me, despite pistols only being able to shoot as far as the length of a tank, 40k looks more like actual combat between two armies. HoMachine doesn't.

I think that's because Warmachine/Hordes (HoMachine sounds like a dirty nightclub at the center of town) is a skirmish game, and not a full-fledged army battle. Would you feel the same about Necromunda or Infinity?

Well, Infinity and Necromunda do feel like wargames in my eyes. I think that's partially due to the settings the games lend themselves to. Homachine, however, is a small scale game on rolling plains.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
It's not so much the mechanics I'm talking about but the feel of the game. To me, despite pistols only being able to shoot as far as the length of a tank, 40k looks more like actual combat between two armies. HoMachine doesn't.

It seems to me that your ideal wargame has alot of figs on the table and that you prefer the "clash of armies" scope of a wargame. That's fine. Many people feel the same way. In historical games, those are often the folks that play ancients, napoleonics or other eras where you can have Company's or even full batallions of of figs on the tableop.

I think perhaps this thread isn't actually about the "nature of wargaming". Rather it's about what "scope of wargame" folks find most visually and tactically appealing.

For myself I don't prefer one scope over another, it's just the spectacle of painted figures battling over a well-crafted battlefield that excites me. Thus I enjoy (without regard to realism) mass battle games like 40k, Warpath, and Panzer 8 Sci-Fi...
as much as I enjoy platoon combat like WarEngine or Tomorrow's War....
as much as a desperate warband size skirmishes (8-15 figs a side) in games like Song of Blades Wastelands, Neutron York or Necromunda.

That said, there's nothing wrong with favoring one scope over another. It's a big hobby and there's a size for everyone. Just don't expect everyone to agree.


Edit,
Seeing your response posted while I was responding, I think you just don't like WarmaHordes (a slightly less insulting abreviation). Hard to tell whether it's the scope, layout (It's ok to have a skirmish on rolling hills) or rules that you don't like, but that's for you to figure out.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Well, Infinity and Necromunda do feel like wargames in my eyes. I think that's partially due to the settings the games lend themselves to. Homachine, however, is a small scale game on rolling plains.

Please stop calling it HoMachine...

So how come you see WHFB as two armies fighting on the field, but Warmachine and Hordes aren't? You have units of men, Large creatures, and magic. Is it because there are ranks and columns of men fighting?

Maybe the Iron Kingdoms believe in smaller levels of Warfare...

I get a much more "authentic" battle-feeling from Warmahordes ("HoMachine", what the hell is that?) than I did from Fantasy Battles or 40K.

You can't really field a WHFB army without soldiers, but you can in Warmahordes (happy?)

And the artwork you see in the books show huge battles.

Actually I totally sympathise with what ExNoctemNacimur is saying. One of the things I like to see in a Wargame is that it looks and ‘feels’ like an actual battle is occurring. HoMachine defiantly doesn’t do that for me. 40K might have done at one point but not any longer.

I think a big part of isn’t just the nature of the figures but the nature of the battlefield. For example most 40K tables look utterly random, for example lone isolated buildings and ruins placed in a way that just don’t look like they are part of an actual settlement or town. For me that takes away allot of the immersion.

I think that part of the reason that I’ve moved to historical gaming is that the games feel more like actual battles, not only in the nature of the games themselves but because mostly the Battlefields look like actual terrain over which battles tend to be fought.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
You can't really field a WHFB army without soldiers, but you can in Warmahordes (happy?)

And the artwork you see in the books show huge battles.

The mangled metal and tooth and claw are game types, and Warmachine which is supposed to be about the giant robots get's the moniker of being Infantry Machine, it's fine that you don't like it as a game, just calling it HoMachine makes your comments all that more inflammatory

I actually do play HoMachine, and I prefer it to 40k. It just doesn't feel like I'm in charge of two armies when I play it whilst in many other games it does.

I want to get started with historical gaming since that's where the money's at for me. I've been watching games of FoW on Youtube and it looks really good - tanks actually can get somewhere in the game and not stay static for a game to get the most out of them! And SAGA looks great too.

>_<

I'm just bugged about the name homachine lol...

Surprisingly enough, I'm getting a FoW demo this Friday, the game store I play at is trying to get me into Flames, but I would only ever be able to play it on nights when no one shows up for Malifaux demos.

LuciusAR wrote:
I think a big part of isn’t just the nature of the figures but the nature of the battlefield. For example most 40K tables look utterly random, for example lone isolated buildings and ruins placed in a way that just don’t look like they are part of an actual settlement or town. For me that takes away allot of the immersion.

I think that part of the reason that I’ve moved to historical gaming is that the games feel more like actual battles, not only in the nature of the games themselves but because mostly the Battlefields look like actual terrain over which battles tend to be fought.

To be fair, 40k (or any other game) tables do not have to be utterly random. All it takes is two players who agree to setup the table in a thematic way. I don't play much 40k anymore, but I usually try to setup my tables in a thematic way for whatever game I'm playing. The longer I've been wargaming, the more important good terrain, in a thematic layout is to my wargaming experience.

This is how I roll...

http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2012/11/song-of-blades-heroes-campaign-session.html

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:I actually do play HoMachine, and I prefer it to 40k. It just doesn't feel like I'm in charge of two armies when I play it whilst in many other games it does.

I want to get started with historical gaming since that's where the money's at for me. I've been watching games of FoW on Youtube and it looks really good - tanks actually can get somewhere in the game and not stay static for a game to get the most out of them! And SAGA looks great too.

Seriously dude, if you want to be taken seriously you've got to stop using "HoMachine" as your abbreviation of choice for Warmachine and Hordes. Half of internet post "meaning" is inference and using that abbreviation instantly makes it seem like you are trolling or disrespecting another game. Regardless of what you mean to say, a little intentional respect is always a good thing.

As to your other comments, if you want a somewhat more realistic use of tanks and other units, then it does sound like Historical games might be a good choice for you, though there are sci-fi and fantasy games that also might fit the bill. Going downscale to something like 15, 10 or even 6 mm might also go a long way toward getting you that "armies clashing" feel.

Wavy to random terrain Mr Eilif!

I'm going to have to say that all of the games that the Op listed are all really bad examples of "actual battle", and in addition, I feel like his argument is weak in general.
Might be worth asking him how old he is and what his combat experience looks like before trying to reason with his take on actual battle.

So what OP saying, is: "cats look like animals to me, dogs also look like animals, but for some reason horses do not. Horses are just weird. Let's discuss that in length."

I'm 15. Of course, I'm too young to get combat experience outside of a paintballing pit (no comments about how I live in the middle east - the UAE is very modern, OK!). I do, however, read up a lot of military history and strategy, my favourite periods being the Dark Ages and the Mediterranean before the Roman Empire (I'm fine with the republic). As a result, I know how commanders such as Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander, Canute, Alfred the Great, Theodoric, Alaric, Clovis and Charlemagne would have won battles. I'm not too interested in the military of armies post-1066 though I do occasionally enjoy reading up about the Second World War, but mainly the Pacific theatre before Pearl Harbour and the German invasions of nearly every country that neighboured them. None of us fought at Alesia or Cannae, obviously, but we would know how a Gallic/Carthaginian/Roman army worked because of
a) accounts of commanders (eg the Gallic Wars by Caesar)
b) archaeological evidence (eg the Battersea shield and Sutton Hoo)
So whilst I don't have any combat experience, I do know how an army functions, though those opinions would be out of sync with a modern army.

Any other questions about my background and qualification to judge a wargames' accurateness?

I can appreciate what the original poster is saying.

by and large when I play FOW due to the scale of the models, you really get the feeling that when you're on the battle field you have this vast strategic game going on with maneuvering and artillery bombardments.

With Infinity It has that feeling of dense urban warfare with small groups fighting it out.

40K always feels that little bit abstract, I think it may help having a bigger board (than 6 by 4) the only really realistic games of 40K I can remember are 'city fight' games - often smaller points higher scenery, and some really big Apoc games.

I personally prefer the scale and feel of 40k and WH to Warmahordes. IMO the latter feels much more like a model-centric skirmish game, while 40k is more squad-based and does feel more like a larger-scale battle.

That's really just a question of taste and feel, though. When you compare 40k to a "real" battle-scale game like, say, 20mm, 15mm or 6mm scale ancients, ECW, ACW, WW2, WW1, etc., 40k starts to feel more skirmishy and less like a "battle".

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Wavy to random terrain Mr Eilif!

A joke, or are we having a mis-communication?

To clarify though, the terrain was setup for a skirmish game involving two warbands fighting their way through the undead (a different player ran each group of undead) in two different neighborhoods (hence why the city is split in two sections) and then duking it out at the waters edge to see who would get the warship. As it was a warband skirmish game I was able to pack the table with terrain and not worry about leaving room for large units to pass in formation.

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:You can't really field a WHFB army without soldiers, but you can in Warmahordes (happy?)

So if I run a WW2 wargame set at Kursk that is tanks vs tanks, it doesn't count as a wargame?

Warjacks are a type of soldier in the wars of the Iron Kingdoms. Semi-sentient robot soldiers though they may be. They're somewhere between the role of a tank and the role of a human soldier.

I don't think any game at 28mm scale is well suited to the "full army" clashes. Wm/h battles are not full armies, they are personal warcaster retinues, patrol forces, or command groups clashing. 40k and Fantasy are also far smaller than any full army in their setting should be. Grey knights might be able to get away with it, but even marine armies seem a little small for anything other than toppling some backwater planet. In general you would expect an army to number in at least the high hundreds.

Games with smaller scaled models help represent that full army vs. army battle far better and they all actually fit on a table at the same time. Battlefleet Gothic and Dystopian Wars are great examples of this where you have fleets battling each other.

Lol. Whenever people disrespect 40k, it's okay, in fact, it's the norm. But the second someone just makes up a nickname for "HoMachine" all hell breaks loose. Awesome....

Yes, well, getting back to the actual topic, 28mm works fine for Ancients, you just need a larger table than for 15mm.

Some people play with 28mm size bases with 6mm figures on them, using a number of small figures to replace one 28mm model. This gives you a very dense looking mass of troops on each base.

edit: nevermind, back on topic it is

 SgtSixkilla wrote:
Lol. Whenever people disrespect 40k, it's okay, in fact, it's the norm. But the second someone just makes up a nickname for "HoMachine" all hell breaks loose. Awesome....

Because all of our games, GW, PP, and what not all have their accepted nomenclature and forum abbreviations. People don't call Warhammer 40k derphammer or any other name because we communicate via a text based language on these sites, and as such meaning is already tough to determine, so why not keep it clean and unambiguous and stick to accepted names.

As to the idea of full armies on the table, OP perhaps you should try playing smaller scale games to get that full army feel, or try historicals (though probably not Bolt Action since it's more squad based).

I played a game of Regimental Fire and Fury (not my cup of tea), but the board looked awesome with the full regiments moving across the board, so based on what you want, I'd tell you play smaller scale dude.