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Everyone likes GWs new big kits, of course they are great - mostly. But don't you think that there is sometimes just too much stuff on the battlefield? Sometimes I wonder wether I'm looking at a battle or a traffic jam. There are two tank companies battling it out on a football field while jet airplanes fly in in narrow circles over their heads.
Of course, 40k is not about realism and that is why we are playing it, but even suspension of disbelief has its limits.

Until 4th edition 40k used to be a game about infantry. There where some tanks thrown in, but they where not the main focus of the game. And I think that is the way it should be. 28mm is just a too big scale for vast vehicle combat. The shooting ranges are already far from being realistic for small arms. A actual rifle shoots farther then 20m, as you might know.
All the big stuff makes you standard Space Marine seem so small and useless, aren't they supposed to be super soldiers.

It seems to me that GW has to deal with a playerbase that increasingly consists of veterans that already have a big collection of models and the design team is constantly worrying what else they could sell to the players.
At first they made tanks much more effective shoved every unit in a transport vehicle, then they added flyers and now every new army gets some big thing as well. They have pretty much made 40k a 28mm version of Epic.

Everyone has a sweet spot how he likes his games, but for me it has all become too much. What will be the next thing after everyone has got airplanes and a big mecha thing. Maybe we will see a shift back towards footslogging lists in the 7th edition, because maybe players will lack infantry models in their collection by then.

If you believe nearly everyone on here GW doesn't care about the veteran player base and are only interested in the churn of kids. What do kids like... big guns and tanks.

Time to stop playing 40k or go back to second edition rules where infantry with the odd walker was king.

Yeah, I do like big models from the perspective of the models themselves, but they do make for crappier games IMO.

You can leave out the stuff that doesn't fit.

I think 40K works best at 1,200 to 1,750 points, which is a size of game that forces the player into difficult decisions about what to take in the army.

 Bellicist wrote:
Everyone likes GWs new big kits, of course they are great - mostly. But don't you think that there is sometimes just too much stuff on the battlefield? Sometimes I wonder wether I'm looking at a battle or a traffic jam. There are two tank companies battling it out on a football field while jet airplanes fly in in narrow circles over their heads.
Of course, 40k is not about realism and that is why we are playing it, but even suspension of disbelief has its limits.

Until 4th edition 40k used to be a game about infantry. There where some tanks thrown in, but they where not the main focus of the game. And I think that is the way it should be. 28mm is just a too big scale for vast vehicle combat. The shooting ranges are already far from being realistic for small arms. A actual rifle shoots farther then 20m, as you might know.
All the big stuff makes you standard Space Marine seem so small and useless, aren't they supposed to be super soldiers.

It seems to me that GW has to deal with a playerbase that increasingly consists of veterans that already have a big collection of models and the design team is constantly worrying what else they could sell to the players.
At first they made tanks much more effective shoved every unit in a transport vehicle, then they added flyers and now every new army gets some big thing as well. They have pretty much made 40k a 28mm version of Epic.

Everyone has a sweet spot how he likes his games, but for me it has all become too much. What will be the next thing after everyone has got airplanes and a big mecha thing. Maybe we will see a shift back towards footslogging lists in the 7th edition, because maybe players will lack infantry models in their collection by then.

This is exactly how I feel. It's just too much. Fliers don't work on a 6x4. I like the Valk kit, and I used to run three when I still played, but it made the game horridly unwieldy. And when I see those giant, intricate kits, honestly all I think is how long it would take to clean off all the mold lines.

I agree, the game doesn't scale well past 1000-1500 points in my experience. The rules aren't tight enough/armies not balanced enough to handle the type of list tweaking that can happen at that level.

40k rules are designed as a skirmish-scale game and the minis are sold in similar quantities, but list design is based around a company-scale game, and the fluff is based around army-scale battles. So theres definitely an identity crisis of scale going on.

this might be because very few units do anything other than roll moar dice. Which is kind of dull at the end of the day.

I definitely agree, and even on a standard 6x4' table having more than a couple of tanks makes any real tactical play useless.

I also can't get my head around the idea of having field artillery, defence emplacements, superheavies and aircraft in an infantry skirmish that's taking place over a ground scale the size of a large car park.

Assuming 1" represents about 2 yards, a 6x4' board is meant to represent 144 x 96 yards, which would easily be covered by small arms fire and would be almost impossible for aircraft to manouvre in.

It's definitely approaching a game scale where it'd benefit greatly from using smaller figures, but I think they're just hoping people will use it like 28mm Epic, like the people playing Apocalypse with 50k points a side on 20ft tables.

I stopped using my Basilisk as it just didn't seem to fit in, and I haven't even opened up my Valkyrie kit because it'd be just as out of place. Most of the games I've played so far have essentially been infantry squads with the occasional mech/tank support, which seems OK for the game.

Herzlos wrote:
I definitely agree, and even on a standard 6x4' table having more than a couple of tanks makes any real tactical play useless.

I also can't get my head around the idea of having field artillery, defence emplacements, superheavies and aircraft in an infantry skirmish that's taking place over a ground scale the size of a large car park.

Assuming 1" represents about 2 yards, a 6x4' board is meant to represent 144 x 96 yards, which would easily be covered by small arms fire and would be almost impossible for aircraft to manouvre in.

It's definitely approaching a game scale where it'd benefit greatly from using smaller figures, but I think they're just hoping people will use it like 28mm Epic, like the people playing Apocalypse with 50k points a side on 20ft tables.

I stopped using my Basilisk as it just didn't seem to fit in, and I haven't even opened up my Valkyrie kit because it'd be just as out of place. Most of the games I've played so far have essentially been infantry squads with the occasional mech/tank support, which seems OK for the game.

We played a game of 30k this weekend on a 6x4 at 3000 points, and it would have probably been a bit more fun had we made the table larger. More space to maneuver and such.

If you don't have 100 orks on the table, you're not having fun the right way!

8x 6 boards help, but yeah it is way too overblown.

Fliers and Super-heavies just do not fit. I fyou want that there is Epic.... oh wait....

Its slowly turning into Epic 28mm, but if thats the way of things then fair enough. I'm not really playing "standard" 40K now as it is and am def not the target market any more.

I hate the use of Named special characters, in games. Yeah sure an 10,000pt Apoc battle might be worth say Kharn's time. But a 1850 point battle with a couple of tac squads is hardly worth the time of the warmaster. Or any other big named character. I guess it boils down to fluff, and people are just using the best units they can for the points they have available, with it being a game and all. But i still prefer fluffy battles.

 cerbrus2 wrote:
I hate the use of Named special characters, in games. Yeah sure an 10,000pt Apoc battle might be worth say Kharn's time. But a 1850 point battle with a couple of tac squads is hardly worth the time of the warmaster. Or any other big named character. I guess it boils down to fluff, and people are just using the best units they can for the points they have available, with it being a game and all. But i still prefer fluffy battles.

You're assuming that 1850 is representative of all forces present at the time. More likely if someone big is involved, it's a focal point of the larger battle going on.

Then again, it's not like historical famous military commanders were only involved in large battles, either.

Yeah that works if you are playing a Campaign, But not for a simple battle. I see what you are saying though. Add fluff to gain fluff.

I always preferred small games with more complex rules and materials. That's what Rogue Trader and 2nd edition did. After that it was about making armies ever larger to sell more figures and now a battlefield has troops crammed in. You could play on a much larger table but it seems that most people don't have the space.

When the club did an Apocalypse game, all those giant war machines looked really awesome, but I did find myself wondering why they'd moved so close to each other before either side thought to shoot something.

So, 8'x6' tables then?

About the only thing that could get me back into buying 40k stuff would be a truescale skirmish level offshoot. Something like Inquisitor but with figs inbetween that size and 40k. IG and regular humans could stay the same but marines and tau battlesuits (for instance) would be bigger to accurately reflect their true size. I don't think that would ever happen though as Inquisitor had the rug pulled out from under it and it doesn't seem that GW is interested in promoting games that don't require 50+ figs per side.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You can leave out the stuff that doesn't fit.

I think 40K works best at 1,200 to 1,750 points, which is a size of game that forces the player into difficult decisions about what to take in the army.

*1850 =)

Probably up to 1,850 now, if you include aircraft and AA units on top of everything else.

I really don't have much issue with all the super kits save that most are designed poorly. I think GW should have left these ideas to FW, and it should have been something that appears in Apocalypse.

I thought 40ks sweet spot in terms of scale versus detail was 2nd ed.
Since then 40k has simply been about 'selling moar minatures to children' and 'rolling moar dice '.IMO.

Epic was a much better system for massive EPIC battles in the 41st Millenium, IMO.
And seemed to attain far more game play with far fewer pages of rules.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You can leave out the stuff that doesn't fit.

I think 40K works best at 1,200 to 1,750 points, which is a size of game that forces the player into difficult decisions about what to take in the army.

*1850 =)

Sure, but I assumed KK was subtracting the seemingly mandatory ADL and Quadgun that is so near ubiquitous these days.

I think so, Its certainly changed a lot the last few years.

I always liked to take at least 30 Marines when I played a 1000 point game because I like infantry and it seemed fluffy, but 3 x 10 Tac squads quickly became impossible if I wanted to win, and it seems to have carried on with that vein, with more MC and huge feth off new walkers turning up with the new Tau and Eldar, I am certainly of the opinion that it isn't as good.

Not just because It looks worse on the table in my opinion, but it isn't fluffy either is it? gak like enormous hitech walkers should be rare, and grunts should be common place, it seems odd that you will see Tau armies for example with hardly any fire warriors but three XV104s.

For me, I love seeing big piles of infantry more than I do 2 or 3 big ass walkers or massive vehicles, but its simply down to personal preference.

I have never used a monstrous creature or incredibly large model as I play Ultramarines, but I have absolutely loved the increased use of flyers. I think they add a different dynamic to the game, and I personally enjoy it. I can see what you are saying though. I stopped in and watched an Apoc game at my local shop 6 months ago. It didn't even look enjoyable to me. So much stuff on the table with at least 15 people playing.

I'll stick to my 2000 pt games for now.

Cheers.

It was during the height of 2nd edition that 40k became a game that is played world wide and GW grew from a UK importer of D&D into an international company. Then after they got big, they revamped the game with the launch of 3rd edition to basically double the model count needed for a standard game. Since then they've been pushing the model count up even higher.

Coincidentally Warmachine & Hordes has been experiencing sales growth and that game is actually pretty similar inthe model count (if not slightly lower) than what was used during GW's greatest period of growth.

When it comes to skirmish gaming, I'm not sure people want 70-100 models per side. I think the big monsters and vehicles actually help with this as they take the place of many, many miniatures and are moved as a single model, effectively reducing the model count of the game-- even if the scope of the game itself makes them completely ridiculous.

Kiwidru wrote:
I agree, the game doesn't scale well past 1000-1500 points in my experience. The rules aren't tight enough/armies not balanced enough to handle the type of list tweaking that can happen at that level.

40k rules are designed as a skirmish-scale game and the minis are sold in similar quantities, but list design is based around a company-scale game, and the fluff is based around army-scale battles. So theres definitely an identity crisis of scale going on.

this might be because very few units do anything other than roll moar dice. Which is kind of dull at the end of the day.

Funny, because I had exactly the same complaint about 40k, though for different reasons.

I have to say I agree, Flyers (smaller ones) is where i draw the line. I can´t honestly imagine lugging 1 or 2 riptides/wraithknights around to go to tournaments, they are just too cumbersome.

Rule of thumb, if it does not fit in my carry case with the rest of my 1500, its too big. Dont get me wrong, many are very beautiful modeling pieces, but terrible gaming pieces.

@lord Castilian: yeah, I am an old timer who was sucked in by the pre-pubescent awesomeness of the complimenting systems... The idea of playing a campaign that spanned from Battlefleet gothic through epic to 40k still sounds awesome to me (although the 40k would probably just be side battles to an apoc game!)

It's a real shame gw is doubling down on 40k instead of focusing on the different expansions, apoc/10mm is fun to play, easy to paint, makes awesome army/unit markers for planetary assault hexes, allows you to play your army without trotting out the same old rule set every game, it's one more thing you can pimp your army out with, it also inspires you to buy more 40k, allows for a more realistic large scale engagement, is generally cheaper and so an easy entry point for the 'maybe' customers.

But we are just a couple of customers, why would anyone listen to us? :(

I like the large kits because they look nice, but I think they are impractical to store and a bit OTT for normal games. For the apocalypse players they're probably a godsend, but I'm not really in that group.

I have drifted away from 40K for a couple of reasons, the main one is moving from my tournament attending group in Ireland to England first and then Germany. When I have played, I've found it to be a bit hard to enjoy as it seems like a lot of work to play an infantry heavy army at the scale of the current game. I don't really like painting vehicles that much, so I have a lot of bits and bobs to mechanise my orks but the only thing I ever painted up was a squiggoth to use as a battlewagon. The fliers really annoy me because they are just too big and dominating on the board and it makes the game look a bit comical to me with these huge boxy fliers hovering around.

For these reasons I find myself slowly drifting more and more towards skirmish level games that still allow some crazy stuff or flexibility. Which is a shame because there's nothing wrong with bigger games, really.