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A discussion with a friend has me contemplating trying my hand at fantasy. I've always liked the fluff quite a bit, but my tabletop experience is pretty well exclusive to the current edition of 40k.

If there's anyone out there with experience with both, how do they compare in terms of rules, gameplay experience, etc?

To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

I've never actually seen any balance issues with 40k except possibly with one or two armies because they may be too overpowered. As for WHFB, it's more of an each army has their unique strength approach (ex. Skaven drowns the enemy in sheer numbers and trades luck for strength while the Warriors of Chaos have more of an approach on small, expensive but quite powerful forces and potent magic.)

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

My group has been playing for 20 years. We play 40k, when and most other GW games
Though I have little experience with tournament style players I have found there to be lots of balance amongst players of equal skill and requires more tactics than 40k. IMO
The majority of games in my group end very close. There is the occasional crushing defeat but they are rare.
Is this possibly because we know how each other plays..maybe but We have alot of fun with WHFB .
I'd say give it a try for sure.

I find 40K to be rather silly in terms of game balance. I still stand by my original assessment that

WHFB is a beer and pretzels game.
40K is a coke and pizza game.

Or something like that. I read 40K books and laugh at how unbalanced it is. You can pick up any 40K book and build lists that have no way whatsoever of winning unless you're fighting someone who did likewise. You're basically required to take some things and group others. I find that very limiting.

If you took nothing but Core troops in WHFB and your hero/lord requirements, you wouldn't be super competitive, but you could still win.

Also, 40K seems more mercenary in forcing players to buy stuff to win. New models in Fantasy aren't necessarily better. An arachnarok spider is cool, but you certainly don't need it. If you had your old Lizardman army from 7th, it's about as good as it was in 8th.

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

40k is only just starting to do away with the constant 'one-upmanship' of 5th edition, where every new codex beginning with IG turned into a massive arms race of who could spam the most OTT crap... up to the point that GK's came out and suddenly most everyone cried! (Daemons & Tyranids especially)


Fantasy on the other hand has about 50% of the books updated to 8th edition AND having all been written to be roughly 'on the level' with eachother.

The only real hiccup, (okay, massive still-gagging-to-death brainfart of the century), is the 8th ed Daemons book... It's just plain horrible from an internal balance aspect and full of badly implemented gimmicks. And of course High Elves and their Banner of the World Dragon gaff defecating all over an already bad book really doesn't help matters...

In terms of overall balance, VC's & Empire are pretty much tied for top spot, while O&G's & HE's aren't far behind. Ogres & WoC can be made to be outright mean. It's a little early to tell yet how the Lizzies are faring since their book is barely a month old, and those poor, poor TK's can be quite difficult to really learn how to make the most of them.
Now while DoC can be made broken as feth, (including having the game's single most abusive gimmick), honestly the book is boring & frustrating as sin to play with due to the complete & utter lack of internal balancing it suffers from.

The rest of the armies, Skaven, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, Wood Elves & Beastmen are all still waiting for their 8th ed updates.

DukeRustfield wrote:

Or something like that. I read 40K books and laugh at how unbalanced it is. You can pick up any 40K book and build lists that have no way whatsoever of winning unless you're fighting someone who did likewise. You're basically required to take some things and group others. I find that very limiting.

This is kind of what I was hoping to hear, in a roundabout way. It would be really nice to be able to pick up a book and go "I want to use this because it looks cool" rather than having to rely on math-hammering out optimal builds to make things work.

Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

Warhammer provides the player with a more tactical game then 40k and skill will decide who wins most of the time rather then list choices.

8th edition a great rule set atm (played since 4th) and a huge improvement over previous editions doing away with a lot of the fiddly measuring that could cause arguments in 7th.

It was controversial when 8th dropped and everyone was running huge hordes now as more 8th army books have come out and players have gotten better at 8th the move is towards big monsters and high armor units.

Its does have downsides compared to 40k in that there is no noob proof army like SMs to start with, but this just means you are not playing the same faction or a variant of said faction 70% of the time.

With the current army book balance reaching the best of I have ever seen for any GW game, Not perfect by any means but so much better then anything I have ever played from GW.

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

Pray tell why you think 8th edition is such a bad rule set? Also, if WHFB wasn't selling do you think GW would still be carrying it?

The newest edition of fantasy is rubbish. I played it for about 2 months after it came out and was bitterly disappointed. This is a shame because I had preferred fantasy to 40k before 8th dropped. Now I've got a beautiful VC army, that never gets played. This is annoying because it is the only army I've got that is fully painted!

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

There's people that pop in every once in a while and say stuff like this. 8th is the most balanced the game has been in at least half a decade. Maybe in 1943 there was some golden age, but I wasn't born so I don't know.

40K is certainly more popular in the US. Because it's grimdark tough guys standing 10 feet tall taking their teenage angst out on the billion trillion zillion planets with their space phallics.

DukeRustfield wrote:

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

There's people that pop in every once in a while and say stuff like this. 8th is the most balanced the game has been in at least half a decade. Maybe in 1943 there was some golden age, but I wasn't born so I don't know.

40K is certainly more popular in the US. Because it's grimdark tough guys standing 10 feet tall taking their teenage angst out on the billion trillion zillion planets with their space phallics.

Yeah I love 8th haters "I dont play 8th its horrible total rubbish but I still frequent 8th forums..." I dont play 6th 40k very much because to me it was a bad rules set however I dont go on the 40k forums to talk gak about some game that a lot of people clearly love because what on earth does that accomplish? I liken it to the wrmahorde players that frequent every GW forum and claim it to be the pinnacle of gaming with an entry cost of less then 50 cents and a rule set written by wargaming monks who ejaculate wargaming excellence. (to calarify warmahordes IS a good ruleset but like all rulesets its a long way from perfect)

I play and have played both. I prefer the fantasy ruleset. The differences between the two games' rules, from what I've experienced, come down to the following:

1) In Fantasy, the movement phase is the game. Positioning, facing, and unit composition and structure are very important, and the movement phase boils down to measuring precise distances and placing units. Because of this, you'll like Fantasy if you like chess.

2) In 40k, the shooting phase is the game. Unit equipment and target selection and priority are very important, and the shooting phase boils down to rolling lots of dice. Because of this, you'll like 40k if you like Yahtzee.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that chess is "better" than Yahtzee, so I made these comparisons with no sarcasm. I prefer Fantasy because I like that tactical positioning that comes along with movement. I enjoy rolling dice less. You roll dice in both games, but for me, 40k FEELS like the game is rolling dice. Not so much with Fantasy.

On a more specific note, I also agree with Duke about the army books for 40k.

If you have only ever played 40k, you should at least try fantasy. It's not like its a huge commitment try a demo game, or even buy a starter army (isle of blood is cheaper then a riptide!)

8th edition is in a good spot now where it has been out enough that most armies are updated under it, but it is likely to be out a while longer. Most armies are pretty well balanced against each other.

Many core rules concepts (like wound tables) are the same, so it is pretty easy to pick up.

40k has a big advantage in that everyone plays it. That said, as long as there's enough players to get a game when I want a game, I could care less about its overall popularity.

Fun is subjective, there are lots of great games out there worth trying.

I started with 40K, and have recently moved towards Fantasy. Quite Frankly, I like the Fantasy 8th Edition rule set far more than I like the 5th and 6th edtions of 40K.

40K is a fun game, don't get me wrong, and I still like bringing my Eldar and Slaanesh CSM out ocasionally, but quite frankly I have been having a lot more fun playing my Bretonnians and Orcs and Goblins.

Here are my reasons.

1) The first, and most obvious difference is the Magic Phase. This just feels so much more intuitive and interesting than 40K psychic powers. More powerful spells are more difficult to cast, and your opponent has dispel dice so he may be able to block some of them! Overall there is a lot more depth to the phase, and Irresistable Force is much more interesting and common than Perils of the Warp.

2) Positioning. My favorite thing about the Eldar was how fast they were. Zooming about, and shooting scatter lasers into weak spots was a very rewarding playstyle. But overall 40K doesn't care at all about which way your units are facing. Fantasy adds an entire new element with the importance of unit facing, there are huge benefits to Flank and Rear charges, units may only shoot in their front arc. It adds another whole element to the game and opens up a lot of strategic options.

3) More of a focus on Movement and Close Combat. You know how people on forums complain about Dwarves, or Gunline Empire? Heres a protip, its the same group of people who would be complaining about Tau or Gunline IG in 40K. At the end of the day gunlines are just not really fun to play against.
For me at least, 40K is at its best somewhere between close combat and 24 inches. In close range fire fights where considerations such as rapid firing but putting yourself at risk of a charge, and other issues come into play. But this is watered down by 40Ks (understandably) much higher focus on powerful long ranged weaponry, and entire factions like Tau or IG specialized in shooting from across the board, with high strength low ap and often cover ignoring weapons. It really moves the game away from 2 players dancing in all phases to one player playing his shooting phase, while the other player desperately tries to make the other two phases (movement and close combat) relevant to the game, and frustratingly oftentimes the gunline will win.
Thats not to say that this doesn't ever happen in fantasy- As has been mentioned Dwarves and other Warmachine Heavy armies can be very frustrating to play against. But on the whole even with those armies shooting is more unreliable Warmachines can misfire, modifiers to shooting make it far more inacurate than it is in 40K, etc. So while shooting is far from irrelevant, it is an equal part of the game to movement and close combat. Even Dwarves will bring great weapons on pretty much every trooper so that when close combat hits they still have teeth!

I think 8th ruined fantasy.... but it is still a far better game then 40k. 40k is like everyone said you pick your gear you put guys down and roll for 45 minutes.... gets boring quick.

Fantasy 8th edition has a few big problems, like the idea that some lords are useable. Most aren't every army needs a level 4 wizard as the lord and since their is a restriction on the total % of points a lord can be this means he is your only lord. So guys like krokgar any ogre lords except a slaughtermaster will just get you killed. Magic is disgustingly over important it is basically a small mans world or harry potter. Your casters cast spells your other men die and if you cast more spells you win 80%+ of your games. It is all about magic, magic and more magic, charging is random for some reason because people never know how far they can run sometimes your men will just stand their looking at you while your enemy takes another shot.

Unless you play one of the big 5 armies you will NEVER get an update. A few armies got to much love and books while others get none, warriors of chaos got 2 updates lizardmen got 2, orc and goblin got 2, skaven got 1, highelves got 1, daemons got 2. So unless you want one of them I might hold off.

So if your a fan of harry potter or are a really little guy trying to make a difference do what the rest of us do hold out for the 9th edition and see if it gets better.

anyone who argues with me ask them how the puplre sun treats them or testicles or what ever his name is from high elves.

 Tangent wrote:
I play and have played both. I prefer the fantasy ruleset. The differences between the two games' rules, from what I've experienced, come down to the following:

1) In Fantasy, the movement phase is the game. Positioning, facing, and unit composition and structure are very important, and the movement phase boils down to measuring precise distances and placing units. Because of this, you'll like Fantasy if you like chess.

2) In 40k, the shooting phase is the game. Unit equipment and target selection and priority are very important, and the shooting phase boils down to rolling lots of dice. Because of this, you'll like 40k if you like Yahtzee.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that chess is "better" than Yahtzee, so I made these comparisons with no sarcasm. I prefer Fantasy because I like that tactical positioning that comes along with movement. I enjoy rolling dice less. You roll dice in both games, but for me, 40k FEELS like the game is rolling dice. Not so much with Fantasy.

On a more specific note, I also agree with Duke about the army books for 40k.

This shows a lack of understand of the 40K ruleset. Movement, order of movement, deployment, and unit positioning are critical components of 40K play.
Side note: I love chess. I have 8 different sets and play lots of variants. Your analogy is not accurate.

I wouldn't play fantasy if someone gave me a free army. I would sell it and get more 40k stuff.

I do agree that 40K is 60% list-building, 30% alpha strike and then 10% tactics
Of course, you can replace "10% tactics" by "10% Helldrakes" or "10% Monstrous Creatures"

I don't enjoy 8th Ed of WHFB due to the overkill that magic is, but mainly due to the Manoeuvering that got over-simplified with "teleport charges" and no wheels (still much more important than in 40K)

Experiment 626 wrote:

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

40k is only just starting to do away with the constant 'one-upmanship' of 5th edition, where every new codex beginning with IG turned into a massive arms race of who could spam the most OTT crap... up to the point that GK's came out and suddenly most everyone cried! (Daemons & Tyranids especially)


Fantasy on the other hand has about 50% of the books updated to 8th edition AND having all been written to be roughly 'on the level' with eachother.

The only real hiccup, (okay, massive still-gagging-to-death brainfart of the century), is the 8th ed Daemons book... It's just plain horrible from an internal balance aspect and full of badly implemented gimmicks. And of course High Elves and their Banner of the World Dragon gaff defecating all over an already bad book really doesn't help matters...

In terms of overall balance, VC's & Empire are pretty much tied for top spot, while O&G's & HE's aren't far behind. Ogres & WoC can be made to be outright mean. It's a little early to tell yet how the Lizzies are faring since their book is barely a month old, and those poor, poor TK's can be quite difficult to really learn how to make the most of them.
Now while DoC can be made broken as feth, (including having the game's single most abusive gimmick), honestly the book is boring & frustrating as sin to play with due to the complete & utter lack of internal balancing it suffers from.

The rest of the armies, Skaven, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, Wood Elves & Beastmen are all still waiting for their 8th ed updates.

In the most recent major UK tourney, DoC won it, and dominated the top 2 spots on the podium. Check #Clash13 on twitter. The book is actually quite good if you take off your whinging glasses and read it.

And the Top books are Ogres, WoC, DE, and Skaven. Empire are top mid, and vampires can be at a stretch.

New Lizzies look to be good, but time will tell. I still maintain my vendetta against saurus though.

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

And if you look up, you will see a typical 40k fanboy, doing what he does best. Soon he will begin shouting and throwing various obscenities out in order to be heard and make people listen.

In all seriousness, there isn't much really wrong with 8th ed, apart from magic and steadfast. There are ways around each. I.E. Comp and MC.

8th is a great edition to start fantasy, with good books, balanced(mostly) rules, and lovely models.

WHFB is certainly a lot more balanced than 40k. 40k has been seeing a power creep recently, whereas the new 8th Edition Books have started bringing all the Fantasy armies in line, so they're all pretty much on-par with each other. In WHFB, every army, and almost every list, can win against every other. In 40k, if you have Daemons and your opponent has GK, that's a loss for you, or if you have Nids and your opponent has DE, that's a loss for you. At the very least, you're fighting a massive uphill battle. In WHFB, a Bretonnian army can quite easily beat a Skaven army, they will just require more skill to do so. What I like about WHFB that I hate about 40k is that there's no - or very little - spam. In 40k you can take a good unit (i.e. a Night/Doom Scythe) and spam it and win. You can't in WHFB. Let's say I spent 75% of my points on Skavenslaves. Skavenslaves are a fantastic and competitive unit, just like the Necron Fliers, but my list would be pretty awful if I did. In Fantasy, each unit has to support each other, right from your General to your basic Core Troops. That's how you win.

The WHFB ruleset is also far, far stronger in my opinion. It suffers from flaws, I admit, but they are very few. I like 6th edition 40k too, but a lot of the rules they've brought in just make for a boring game. The 40k rules make sitting behind an Aegis all game a viable tactic. With Fantasy, you have to manoeuvre your units, carefully positioning each one so as to gain an advantage, or pull off a cunning ploy against your opponent. If I plonked a flying model behind your unit in 40k, you'd just turn and shoot/assault it, but in Fantasy, if I did the same, there'd be very little you could do about it. Unless you were clever and had a plan in place. The Magic Phase is also one of the most tactical phases in either game - you've got to figure out what spells would be most beneficial to you and often try and manipulate your opponent to allow you to do so. There's a lot more things to consider in WHFB. Tactically, it's much more demanding.

8th Edition does have flaws, namely the fact that Infantry and Magic is stronger than it should be. But the two things counter each other well and though a lot of people will make this out as a rock/paper/scissors between infantry, magic and everything else, there's so much variety in place that this is very rarely the case. As I mentioned before, 40k has a lot more rock paper scissors to it. And, finally, as a note on variety, take a look at the available armies for 40k and the ones available for Fantasy. There are 15 for 40k, and 7 - that's almost half - are Space Marines ones. I guess you could say Sisters aren't, but still. That's a lot of similarity. In Fantasy, there's the same number of armies available, but each is vastly different - with perhaps on the Elven armies and the human armies not being so. And the Elven ones don't really count because there's two of them in 40k as well.

Don't get me wrong, 40k's great and I really enjoy 40k (it's main advantage being its ability to be played properly with small, cheaply-bought armies), but Fantasy is just better

OgreChubbs wrote:
I think 8th ruined fantasy.... but it is still a far better game then 40k. 40k is like everyone said you pick your gear you put guys down and roll for 45 minutes.... gets boring quick.

Fantasy 8th edition has a few big problems, like the idea that some lords are useable. Most aren't every army needs a level 4 wizard as the lord and since their is a restriction on the total % of points a lord can be this means he is your only lord. So guys like krokgar any ogre lords except a slaughtermaster will just get you killed. Magic is disgustingly over important it is basically a small mans world or harry potter. Your casters cast spells your other men die and if you cast more spells you win 80%+ of your games. It is all about magic, magic and more magic, charging is random for some reason because people never know how far they can run sometimes your men will just stand their looking at you while your enemy takes another shot.

Unless you play one of the big 5 armies you will NEVER get an update. A few armies got to much love and books while others get none, warriors of chaos got 2 updates lizardmen got 2, orc and goblin got 2, skaven got 1, highelves got 1, daemons got 2. So unless you want one of them I might hold off.

So if your a fan of harry potter or are a really little guy trying to make a difference do what the rest of us do hold out for the 9th edition and see if it gets better.

anyone who argues with me ask them how the puplre sun treats them or testicles or what ever his name is from high elves.

While you did bring up issues, your post went from legitimate complaints to crying in a heartbeat.

Fantasy overall is great. While there are issues, such as a level four being almost a compulsion to win tournaments (you can win without it, but not the majority of games, or the dominince the magic phase plays, it's not quite the disaster your complaining about. Some armies have issues (dwarves, Bret's, and wood elves) however for the most part you can win with any faction. The game is more about skill and planning IMO.

As for teclis, he's not bad in the new book. Really only 3 special characters need to be banned (fate weaver, Thorek, and the new nugle demon hero with the counter. If you agree to this everything is balanced.

Purple sun people don't like because it definitely is a game changer. You have to be aware it could come and your fine. Even if you do make a mistake, most of the time you can still pull out a win. It only happens in 1 out of 100 games that magic really changes the outcome of the game, not even that. In the one game I had a devistating purple sun hit me (it killed my arch lector, 21 halberdiers, 2 archers, and 2 knights), I went from a solid victory turn 2, to losing in turn 3, to a tie turn 4. We had to call it there but if I got one more plaguebearer killed it would have been victory for me.

Essentially while magic can be quite devistating, playing right can still garner you a victory if you play it correctly.

 The Shadow wrote:
WHFB is certainly a lot more balanced than 40k. 40k has been seeing a power creep recently, whereas the new 8th Edition Books have started bringing all the Fantasy armies in line, so they're all pretty much on-par with each other. In WHFB, every army, and almost every list, can win against every other. In 40k, if you have Daemons and your opponent has GK, that's a loss for you, or if you have Nids and your opponent has DE, that's a loss for you. At the very least, you're fighting a massive uphill battle. In WHFB, a Bretonnian army can quite easily beat a Skaven army, they will just require more skill to do so. What I like about WHFB that I hate about 40k is that there's no - or very little - spam. In 40k you can take a good unit (i.e. a Night/Doom Scythe) and spam it and win. You can't in WHFB. Let's say I spent 75% of my points on Skavenslaves. Skavenslaves are a fantastic and competitive unit, just like the Necron Fliers, but my list would be pretty awful if I did. In Fantasy, each unit has to support each other, right from your General to your basic Core Troops. That's how you win.

The WHFB ruleset is also far, far stronger in my opinion. It suffers from flaws, I admit, but they are very few. I like 6th edition 40k too, but a lot of the rules they've brought in just make for a boring game. The 40k rules make sitting behind an Aegis all game a viable tactic. With Fantasy, you have to manoeuvre your units, carefully positioning each one so as to gain an advantage, or pull off a cunning ploy against your opponent. If I plonked a flying model behind your unit in 40k, you'd just turn and shoot/assault it, but in Fantasy, if I did the same, there'd be very little you could do about it. Unless you were clever and had a plan in place. The Magic Phase is also one of the most tactical phases in either game - you've got to figure out what spells would be most beneficial to you and often try and manipulate your opponent to allow you to do so. There's a lot more things to consider in WHFB. Tactically, it's much more demanding.

8th Edition does have flaws, namely the fact that Infantry and Magic is stronger than it should be. But the two things counter each other well and though a lot of people will make this out as a rock/paper/scissors between infantry, magic and everything else, there's so much variety in place that this is very rarely the case. As I mentioned before, 40k has a lot more rock paper scissors to it. And, finally, as a note on variety, take a look at the available armies for 40k and the ones available for Fantasy. There are 15 for 40k, and 7 - that's almost half - are Space Marines ones. I guess you could say Sisters aren't, but still. That's a lot of similarity. In Fantasy, there's the same number of armies available, but each is vastly different - with perhaps on the Elven armies and the human armies not being so. And the Elven ones don't really count because there's two of them in 40k as well.

Don't get me wrong, 40k's great and I really enjoy 40k (it's main advantage being its ability to be played properly with small, cheaply-bought armies), but Fantasy is just better

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

dlight wrote:

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

Well aren't you just special. Ignorance must be bliss. But I have to break some news to you. While the GK v Daemons argue ment is invalid since 6th edition, it remains a key factor in most people's memories essentially balance in 40k has been terrible for quite some time and theres little signs of that changing. While in fantasy, high elves are far far far from an autowin vs daemons, even with the banner. And if they spend so many points into the banner that daemons can't win... That army can't win a tourney. (Hint: harpies are awesome for dealing with the banner).

Movement in 40k is no where near as important. This argue ment is so invalid I can't even argue against it. The lack of facing just makes movement in 40k almost a joke. I've never watched 1/8th of an inch turn or wheel like I have to in fantasy. While magic can be a bit overwhelming, a good strategy will beat out someone who relies on IF Purple sun 9 times out of 10. It's a bit too powerful, I agree, but nowhere near as "game breaking" as you imply.

#5 is not an argument. I can and do say the opposite. 5th edition was terrible (and because of it 6th edition has not been given a chance), and I see no reason to play it when fantasy is available. See?

Your sixth reason is anecdotal evidence. Here in south jersey, fantasy is far more popular than 40k or warmachine. Our tournaments regularly get 20+ attendees and 40k died with 6th edition. While 40k is growing once again back past 10 attendees, its not going faster. I would venture to say the fantasy players are there in your city. They're just not at your store/club

I love my Night Lords. But I actually really hate 6th ed 40k.

8th Ed on the other hand. A few things bother me about it. But it isn't nearly as fething bad as new Tau or Eldar. And I loathe to think what the Loyalists will be like when that new book hits.

Stoupe wrote:

dlight wrote:

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

Well aren't you just special. Ignorance must be bliss. But I have to break some news to you. While the GK v Daemons argue ment is invalid since 6th edition, it remains a key factor in most people's memories essentially balance in 40k has been terrible for quite some time and theres little signs of that changing. While in fantasy, high elves are far far far from an autowin vs daemons, even with the banner. And if they spend so many points into the banner that daemons can't win... That army can't win a tourney. (Hint: harpies are awesome for dealing with the banner).

Movement in 40k is no where near as important. This argue ment is so invalid I can't even argue against it. The lack of facing just makes movement in 40k almost a joke. I've never watched 1/8th of an inch turn or wheel like I have to in fantasy. While magic can be a bit overwhelming, a good strategy will beat out someone who relies on IF Purple sun 9 times out of 10. It's a bit too powerful, I agree, but nowhere near as "game breaking" as you imply.

#5 is not an argument. I can and do say the opposite. 5th edition was terrible (and because of it 6th edition has not been given a chance), and I see no reason to play it when fantasy is available. See?

Your sixth reason is anecdotal evidence. Here in south jersey, fantasy is far more popular than 40k or warmachine. Our tournaments regularly get 20+ attendees and 40k died with 6th edition. While 40k is growing once again back past 10 attendees, its not going faster. I would venture to say the fantasy players are there in your city. They're just not at your store/club

I am special. Very special.

And I hate to break it to you, I was tabling GK in 5th with daemons as well. Including 20 Paladin GK builds at 2K points. Matter of fact, it was a bit of a joke unless the GK player completely tailored to fight my army.

I still think fantasy is poop. If my local area was filled with fantasy players, I may change my tune. But it is not going to happen.

I do agree that 40K is 60% list-building, 30% alpha strike and then 10% tactics

It really is list-building. I don't know the breakdown, but if you say it isn't, you haven't looked through the books recently. You really can look at two armies on paper and decide with Vegas odds accuracy who will win. I like list-building. It's fun. But it's like you could both print out lists, submit them to random number generator program, and get the winner.

#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.

This is really disingenuous. Fantasy has movement trays. 40K moves in giant handfuls. But moreover, I believe Fantasy has ABOUT 20 pages of rules for movement if you include special rules and such. 40K has ABOUT 6 I think. Someone can do an exact count, but it's a huge difference. And while more != better, it's certainly more complex.


However, these threads usually get pretty trollful. If you like 40K, rock out 40K. If you like Fantasy, stick with it. If you like dressing up as a giant monkey and balancing a cat on your head, I am not one to tell you that is a wrong thing to do--if the cat is comfortable.

I play and enjoy both.

40k is about list building and target selection. I play DE without allies and I can hang with most other armies in our group, but no one else really uses allies. I run the Baron, so I usually go first. I seem to win a lot more when I go first compared to when going second. That is a problem a lot of 40k armies have, but especially DE. That's why I take Baron... it's part of list building. I like how in 40k you can be getting pounded, but still have a chance to win by objectives. I regularly play Tau and have a close to 50/50 win/loss ratio with them. I haven't played Eldar yet, because I've been focused on fantasy lately...

I wanted to like 8th edition, but it killed our fantasy group for 3 years. Too much of a focus on big spells and big units, huge decrease in the importance of flanking. We recently started using the ETC rules and have had a lot of fun. ETC has brought fantasy back to life for me. I won't get into the debate of what "competitive" warhammer is or its merits, but I will say that ETC has really balanced the power between army books. The TK and Beastmen players in our group are much happier now. I play Skaven, Dark Elves, and Chaos Dwarfs and I think ETC is nothing but a positive thing for the game.

So in my mind, 40k>>Fantasy. But 40k<ETC Fantasy.

Stangely, we haven't tried ETC for 40k. I just don't feel like there is as big of a need for it.

>

dlight wrote:

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.

Like Stoupe says, I mainly refer to when GK first came out. Even now though, it's at the very best an uphill battle. Tell me, do you "routinely table" Daemon players who are of an equal skill level and have an equally competitive list, bearing in mind neither side has one-sided luck? The fact that GK aren't as good now just emphasises another thing that's bad about 40k - power creep.

As for #2, it does depend on the list, and where BotWD is used. If it's on Dragon Princes, Daemons can quite easily still win, if the Daemon player is clever about it. Even if it's on White Lions, there's still the possibility of being able to avoid the Lionstar, and focus on killing the HE player's Core choices he has to take, and any other units he's taken. Even if you can't avoid it, some Daemon builds will stop it from doing any serious damage.

dlight wrote:

#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.

I'm going to have to pull out the "just no" here. Like Stoupe says, the lack of facing makes 40k movement woefully simplistic from a tactical point of view. In 40k you don't have to worry about angles. If something's close, you can assault or shoot it. In Fantasy, I can move an Eagle right next to your cannon, behind all your other units and there'll be nothing you can do about it. Tough luck, my Eagle is going to shred your cannon crew, you should have had a plan in mind to protect your cannon, if it's important to your strategy.

dlight wrote:

#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.

It's one of the flaws, I admit, but hardly terrible. The way Magic works is, in general, fine. It's a bit random, but otherwise it's fine. It's only the lores that are the problem, in particular the "sixth spells". But that Level 4 caster your opponent has is a lot less scary if you take a Lvl 4 Wizard of your own and while spells like Final Transmutation may remove a third of your unit, the spell is a lot less scary if a third of your unit is five, and not twenty. So, in short, Magic is a bit too powerful, but it can be countered and, frankly, Magic should be powerful - Wizards are held in regard as being extremely powerful in most pop culture fantasy.

dlight wrote:

#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.

40k is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when Fantasy is available.

The point I'm making is that what you've said here is very vague and isn't backed up at all. Would you care to explain what you mean by it?

dlight wrote:

#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

Then I'm afraid you're just unlucky. If I lived somewhere where Fantasy was never played, I'd probably just stick to 40k too. But fortunately, in my area, there are plenty of Fantasy players available.