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 Peregrine wrote:
Lots of stuff I agree with.

Absolutely. In my experience, people who defend 40k and WFB as being "easy to play" haven't tried other games.

40k and WFB are both clunky messes with FAQs stacked on top of special rules stacked on top of special rules stacked on top of hodge-podge fixes stacked on top of a 30 year old ruleset. The rules are overly complicated and poorly written. They often use "forging a narrative" to make up for poor rule writing. The games themselves offer little tactical depth beyond choosing to buy the most expensive models in the range from GW.

GW is perfectly capable of creating awesome and modern rulesets, such as Epic:Armageddon, but have binned them in favour of their clunky and outdated core games.

X-Wing is a pick up and play, beer and pretzels game that is so easy to learn that even non-nerds pick it up within 2 turns. It's still incredibly strategic. Kings of War has a grand total of 20 pages of rules, including special rules and scenarios yet offers far more tactical options than WFB. There is no reason why you can't play KoW or Warpath using GW miniatures, lores and settings and have a much better game on all counts.

The only reason to play 40k and WFB is because a lot of other people play them.

Knowing what I know now, having played all the different tabletop and board games, I definitely would not have picked up Warhammer 40K. It's appealing models and backstory are killed by the primitive and clunky, although simplistic, ruleset.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Are you saying that in the past, when GW produced a wide variety of games, they were designing games for games sake rather than to drive sales of miniatures? I see 3rd edition 40k and 6th edition fantasy as the beginning of GW's game design as vectors for model sales rather than for their merits as games. Tuomos Perinen and Andy Chambers did their best to keep the games good as games, but in the end, I think commercial interests won out and both the head of 40k and the head of WFB ended up moving on to the video game industry.

They all do it as a means to drive miniatures sales. if you read any of the many of the "History of Warhammer/Oldhammer" articles being published on the net lately - many on or linked from http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com - then you'll know that from the get-go, Warhammer was conceived by Bryan Ansell as a way to sell more miniatures. Every Kickstarter and up-and-coming company seems to want to produce their own game to go with their line of figures - Dreamforge, McVey, Raging Heroes, Red Box... and so forth.




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Daedleh wrote:

40k and WFB are both clunky messes with FAQs stacked on top of special rules stacked on top of special rules stacked on top of hodge-podge fixes stacked on top of a 30 year old ruleset. The rules are overly complicated and poorly written. They often use "forging a narrative" to make up for poor rule writing. The games themselves offer little tactical depth beyond choosing to buy the most expensive models in the range from GW.

40k in it's current iteration is 15 years old, not 30. The point should be strong enough without doubling it via hyperbole. I haven't played WHFB for many years, but if 6th ed was a reset button for that system as 3rd was for 40k, then it's 13 years old.

X-Wing is a pick up and play, beer and pretzels game that is so easy to learn that even non-nerds pick it up within 2 turns. It's still incredibly strategic. Kings of War has a grand total of 20 pages of rules, including special rules and scenarios yet offers far more tactical options than WFB. There is no reason why you can't play KoW or Warpath using GW miniatures, lores and settings and have a much better game on all counts.

The only reason to play 40k and WFB is because a lot of other people play them.

How about fun? I tend to find fun is a good reason to play a game. I'm not interested in the tournament scene, or playing arseholes - so I'm sure I skip most of the worst of the hyper-competitive win-at-all-costs playerbase, but as a game between friends, any edition of 40k certainly delivers fun, just as X-Wing or any number of other games and systems will also do for you...

Fun is in the eye of the beholder. In my last 5 of tournament play, I have met exactly one unpleasant win-at-all-costs player.

All miniatures games make their money off miniatures, but as far as I've been able to understand, the protests against the current editions is more about forcing larger and larger armies to drive sales rather than having to have miniatures to play a miniatures game.

The "reset buttons" for WHFB and 40k were hardly system-changers. The basic mechanisms stayed in, so 40k is around 25 and WHFB is 30.

Vote: No. The rules are poorly worded and unbalanced, both internally within armies, and externally between armies. A company that istaking great efforts to monopolize its product (Try to think about the last time that was good for the customers), No online support, designed obsolescence of materials.

That being said, people that play many games tend to be nicer and more open-minded in my experience, so perhaps get a small skirmish force just for the experience. Dont take the advice of any single system propagandist!

 Azazelx wrote:

How about fun? I tend to find fun is a good reason to play a game. I'm not interested in the tournament scene, or playing arseholes - so I'm sure I skip most of the worst of the hyper-competitive win-at-all-costs playerbase...

The tournament scene here (from what I can tell) is more about organised gaming; the opportunity to get a 4/5 games in against new players, and isn't necessarily about competing. There will be some WAAC'ers but they are generally in the minority.

...but as a game between friends, any edition of 40k certainly delivers fun, just as X-Wing or any number of other games and systems will also do for you...

What makes 40K, in your eyes?

I have to say, if I was introducing a new gamer I'd be suggesting X-Wing before 40K, because on an immersion, mechanics and learning curve basis X-Wing is in a whole new league.

In a short answer, no not at all. Both games are horribly imbalanced and it grinds Casual play to a halt a bit unless you make some house rules or do a bit of hand-waving. And these editions is what actually made me go into Warmahordes and Infinity.

Now, I do not mind the possible free aspect of the rules, but if they re-written it (which is highly unlikely) or if someone else like Fantasy Flight games wrote it, then I might possibly think of playing it again.

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:
In a short answer, no not at all. Both games are horribly imbalanced and it grinds Casual play to a halt a bit unless you make some house rules or do a bit of hand-waving. And these editions is what actually made me go into Warmahordes and Infinity.

Now, I do not mind the possible free aspect of the rules, but if they re-written it (which is highly unlikely) or if someone else like Fantasy Flight games wrote it, then I might possibly think of playing it again.

What "grinds casual play to a halt" exactly? I haven't experienced this and my group is hardly make up of rules experts.

I don't know about fantasy, but I believe 40k could stand on its own. So much crazy stuff can happen when both players(or 4 or more players even) are just out for a fun game. Its a ton of fun when everyone keeps it casual, and is just hanging out for a good time with friends.

Special rules usually cause things to grind to a halt for me.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:
In a short answer, no not at all. Both games are horribly imbalanced and it grinds Casual play to a halt a bit unless you make some house rules or do a bit of hand-waving. And these editions is what actually made me go into Warmahordes and Infinity.

Now, I do not mind the possible free aspect of the rules, but if they re-written it (which is highly unlikely) or if someone else like Fantasy Flight games wrote it, then I might possibly think of playing it again.

What "grinds casual play to a halt" exactly? I haven't experienced this and my group is hardly make up of rules experts.

Might be the group I used to play with, since we would have to look up the rulebook about 3-4 times a game. It does not help that the rules are written ambiguously and kind of started arguments over it, and no one was kind of willing to hand-wave a bit or make a bit of house/ club rules to do this (I brought up the idea a bit). Although this is what I and I alone experienced, and there may or may not be other people who experienced it, so it anecdotal and possibly subjective at best. Probably should have put that in the first post I made so I apologize about that :/ ...

If you want to use the Warhammer background with a set of rules that actually have depth, there's always Warmaster: certainly one of the best three rulesets GW has ever published.

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:
In a short answer, no not at all. Both games are horribly imbalanced and it grinds Casual play to a halt a bit unless you make some house rules or do a bit of hand-waving. And these editions is what actually made me go into Warmahordes and Infinity.

Now, I do not mind the possible free aspect of the rules, but if they re-written it (which is highly unlikely) or if someone else like Fantasy Flight games wrote it, then I might possibly think of playing it again.

What "grinds casual play to a halt" exactly? I haven't experienced this and my group is hardly make up of rules experts.

Might be the group I used to play with, since we would have to look up the rulebook about 3-4 times a game. It does not help that the rules are written ambiguously and kind of started arguments over it, and no one was kind of willing to hand-wave a bit or make a bit of house/ club rules to do this (I brought up the idea a bit). Although this is what I and I alone experienced, and there may or may not be other people who experienced it, so it anecdotal and possibly subjective at best. Probably should have put that in the first post I made so I apologize about that :/ ...

No worries; I was really just curious. We have to look at the rulebook sometimes, but we're also much more likely to hand wave. I can't say I've ever been in a 40k rules related argument. I mean, we did call out a guy for being a bit of a douche at Adepticon regarding one of Mephistons powers, but that's about it. He was technically right, so we dropped it, but he knew he was being a douche and so did we. We just kept drinking and let it go.

On a rules basis, 40K is a terrible game. Too much emphasis is put on getting the first turn, and the ancient I Go You Go system needs to die yesterday (no matter which game uses it). There's no reason for one player to sit around for 15 minutes a go watching the other do everything. The army construction system is too limiting, too unbalanced (though as that is largely related to selling models it might not actually occur in this utopia), and there is far too much randomness for the sake of randomness.

To be honest, 40K has too much of its legacy as an RPG Offshoot left to be a good quality wargame. It comes from an era when the vast majority of players were simply playing with friends and just wanting to toss some dice around. Today, though, not only has the players' focus become more competitive (even if ignoring tournaments) and/or incorporating more strangers (the Internet has allowed for far better organization of small clubs and local tournaments), but there are other rules sets giving a far more rewarding experience in terms of gameplay. There has never been a full, ground-up rewrite of the system like there has been for other games* over the years, and it desperately needs to have all the ancient bullcrappe culled from the system.

*: D&D is a good and bad example of this. The 3rd Edition was a massively successful overhaul where they ditched such legacy items as THAC0, unintuitive armor classes, weird skill systems, and the like while keeping the core of the system intact and modernized. On the other hand, the 4th edition removed everything that was actually D&D about D&D.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
Fun is in the eye of the beholder. In my last 5 of tournament play, I have met exactly one unpleasant win-at-all-costs player.
All miniatures games make their money off miniatures, but as far as I've been able to understand, the protests against the current editions is more about forcing larger and larger armies to drive sales rather than having to have miniatures to play a miniatures game.
The "reset buttons" for WHFB and 40k were hardly system-changers. The basic mechanisms stayed in, so 40k is around 25 and WHFB is 30.

As I said, I don't do tourneys, so I just skip that aspect completely. If you're finding cool, fun people to play at tourneys, then it's great that you're having even more fun with the system!

The 40k changes between 2nd-3rd ed were very much about a lot of substantial fundamental system changes. Armour, cover, movement.. I could go on, but it was very much a different game - as was RT to 2nd Edition (Herohammer). Since then, they've been playing the iteration game again, but 3rd was a hugely fun, nice, clean, streamlined game when it came out.


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Herzlos wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

How about fun? I tend to find fun is a good reason to play a game. I'm not interested in the tournament scene, or playing arseholes - so I'm sure I skip most of the worst of the hyper-competitive win-at-all-costs playerbase...

The tournament scene here (from what I can tell) is more about organised gaming; the opportunity to get a 4/5 games in against new players, and isn't necessarily about competing. There will be some WAAC'ers but they are generally in the minority.

...but as a game between friends, any edition of 40k certainly delivers fun, just as X-Wing or any number of other games and systems will also do for you...

What makes 40K, in your eyes?
I have to say, if I was introducing a new gamer I'd be suggesting X-Wing before 40K, because on an immersion, mechanics and learning curve basis X-Wing is in a whole new league.

In all honesty, I've advised interested teenagers away from 40k and GW products a number of times. I've suggested games with miniatures like the WoW prepaint game, the D&D boardgames (Ravenloft, etc), because I can't in good faith recommend them to teenagers and their parents who'd have to cough up for it (with a huge chance they will lose interest). I essentially say "try these other games and if you're still interested in this sort of thing after awhile, I'll point you to some more advanced games, with painting and model construction and so on". X-Wing is a more recent release, but still a bit expensive to recommend for teens to start with - $50 startup, $20 per ship, $44 for the Falcon or Slave 1 - sure you only need a few, but you're over $150-200 without blinking - you can buy an XBox 360/PS3 for that much.

Talking to a new adult gamer, or someone coming in from RPGs or some such, I'd lay it all down straight up for them. In the same way we do here. Positives and negatives right on the table. Rules wouldn't be in the forefront of either side, frankly. Price, aesthetics, getting a game all come before the ruleset to me.

What makes 40k for me, personally? 25 years of investment, a lot of fun, great miniatures through the years, painted figures en masse, the background, all that kind of gak. I'm also not too fussed about winning - I'm just after low-stress fun with my mates, so I'm less stressed about "broken codexes" and since my close mates don't collect minis, it's an opportunity for me to paint my various armies into pre-made lists for us to do battle with.

 Phobos wrote:
What I mean, is to someone totally new to wargaming and has never played any system before, are the 2 GW systems worth playing in and of themselves? There are alot of competitive rule-sets out there these days. Kings of War, Dust Tactics, Bolt Action, Dropzone Commander, Flames of War, etc. What makes the GW systems better or worse?

Disregard costs associated with them. Assume all rulebooks and models are free. Ignore any extra-curricular activities by the company.

Further assume the person will never have to find a game (they have a constant supply of players), and does not care about tournaments.

So, are the 2 GW systems good enough to stand on their own?

They are playable for sure, and not 'bad' games, per se. They are not incredibly old or out-dated, they are relatively simple to learn, they are supported well for sure, and it can be fairly easy to find someone to play with.

That said, compared to many other systems out in the world today, both flagship GW games are bloated and problematic. There is little that is "elegant" about 40K and Fantasy. They are not terribly well set up for competitive play, nor are they simple and quick enough for real beer and pretzels play.

All in all, I'd say that there is no strong reason to not play WH40K and WHFB, but there are plenty of objectively better games out there and a wide enough selection of well-designed games that you can find pretty much whatever you are looking for in a table-top wargame.


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 AegisGrimm wrote:
I actually think that the current 40K manages to stay afloat though sheer inertia, rather than innovation. Even discounting the differences that exist between 6th edition and 2nd, there are vast similarities that have been carrying the game for 25+ years, through all versions of the rules for each game.

Exactly. 40K and Fantasy power through largely because of market presence. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but GW seems to have stopped innovating when it comes to game design.


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 azreal13 wrote:
Many people criticise the mechanics or the company, few criticise the setting.

Oh, I criticize the setting plenty, or at least what GW has done with it in the past 10 years or so. GW has whitewashed 40K far too much to the point that it is actually very disturbing from a societal point of view (as in real world society, not 40K society). 40K is a dystopian sci-fi setting born of the 1980's British punk backlash. It is a rather stark commentary on the Thatcher years, deliberate or not. Mixed in was a really interesting vein of tongue-in-cheek humor, that seemed to have a sort of nostalgic and gallows air to it given the horrifying nature of the 40K setting.

Space Marines were brutal, merciless enforcers of a bloody dictatorship bent on achieving some shred of stability by any, literally any, means necessary, heedless of the cost to individuals. Human beings would survive, even if it meant being eternally miserable and degraded. The Imperium of Man is a wrecked, wretched, forlorn shadow of mankind's glory; a perpetual mausoleum immortalizing the hubris of a people who believed the power of their intellect could allow them to live as hedonistic gods.

The core of 40K has never changed, but GW has whitewashed the surface, glorifying the heroism and purity of the Space Marines, for example. Rather than questioning the merits of Imperium society, rather than holding it out as a coarse commentray on the state modern society, GW glorifies the Empire of Mankind, implicitly legitimizing its dystopian nature. Every 40K novel describes the Imperium as the most bloody regime imaginable, but the fluff far too often glorifies the cruelty, racism, xenophobia, bigotry, violence, exploitation, and rank injustice of that society. I find it to be disturbing and off-putting.

FFG has a much better handle on the nature of 40K, strangely enough, and games like Dark Heresy reflect critically on the Empire of Mankind; a galaxy in which an incomparably wealthy religious institution will steal a person's baby and turn it into a mindless, mutilated, cybernetic zombie for no purpose other than to serve the whims of an individual enjoying a level of wealth and comfort denied to trillions, and call it a blessing.

Speaking for what I know:

40k has such a huge history and body of work that those who like some more story with their war-game it is hard to argue against. (Books, video games, codexes, WD).
Ease of rules, I cannot say it is easy, not as hard as 'Starfleet Battles" but "Starfleet Commander" is easier (Or should I compare this to "Blackpowder" which is easier?).
Armies seem to have more of an expiry date on them or wax and wane which may not sit well for some.

Battletech had many great stories and battles with it since it too had a huge body of work, "codexes" and many video games so it is a worthwhile comparison.
It too had easier rules but was more a skirmish game but big battles could be done. I still have better stories from Battletech than 40k.

I have found time and time again that a very carefully balanced game is.... boring.
The over the top charcters, mechs, any difficult to overcome opponent piece makes for an exciting game.
Fighting against the odds and succeeding is talked about more than the grinder games where only a couple models survived (other than how long and drawn out it was).

Summary: It is worth playing on it's merits but it takes more work and money so it is not a quick "pick up and play". 40k has so much going for it, if the rules were cleaned up a bit (tiny bit more intuitive please?) and fine, keep some of odd powerful characters or specific units that give flavor to an army and have at it.

If you take out the "fluff" factor and the other things the OP mentions than the actual ruleset for Warhammer 40k is not a great game.

It is burdened by outdated mechanics, mountains of special rules that would be better served by stats (i.e. a MV stat instead of fleet of _____ and it's variants), and the constant modification of those rules by codicies is silly.

Yet, despite having a massive rulebook, 40k completely disregards tactical options offered by things like overwatch (the 40k mechanic bearing this name is NOT), reactive actions, etc.

All that is not to say that 40k is a bad game. It's just compared to other current games not a "great" or even a "very-good" game. It's an ok game that survives by virtue of ubiquity, market share, an extensive-and-growing miniatures line, and a stunningly deep background.

 Talizvar wrote:
Speaking for what I know:

40k has such a huge history and body of work that those who like some more story with their war-game it is hard to argue against. (Books, video games, codexes, WD).

I agree, but I scratch that itch more through the RPG's these days. Codexes feel like they've really gone as far as they can, as once you've got stuff like Draigo, where can you really go from there?

 Elemental wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Speaking for what I know:

40k has such a huge history and body of work that those who like some more story with their war-game it is hard to argue against. (Books, video games, codexes, WD).

I agree, but I scratch that itch more through the RPG's these days. Codexes feel like they've really gone as far as they can, as once you've got stuff like Draigo, where can you really go from there?

Up.

love the game, pure and simple. For someone just getting into it it can be fun and there are a lot of people who can help in regards to learning, painting and playing.

True there are other systems that are easier, or more tactical, but I found that 40k gave me an excellent base for my skills and made other games easy to understand.

While the system itself is "stale" ie. just the same thing over and over again really, they really do offer a lot of variety in terms of models and armies.

Assuming money is of no concern the only problem I've ever had is sometimes there's just so much to paint when you're first starting. If you got into something like Warmachine you can begin playing with less than 10 models total, most 40k armies 10 models is one squad.

The only real problem I have with 40k is the rulebook and the changes, but it's also a problem I feel every system sooner or later encounters, and with 40k being as old as it is there is a LOT of stuff. After 6 editions they've kept things and gotten rid of things, some to make money, some to make players happy, and some that are just weird. But most games as they age will reach a point where it's just ridiculous, I'm sincerely hoping when they get around to 7th edition they can streamline more, but I think that would require a lot of community involvement to make sure that they know we want that.

LOL @ the people managing to turn this into personal attacks within 1 page. You know who you are, really, hang your heads in shame..

 MajorTom11 wrote:
I think they are. In fact, being completely fresh to it may actually make you like it more as you won't be resentful about changes or pining for the way things used to be. .

Agree with this. After being something of a gaming whore and having played probably dozens of systems, and therefore able to draw comparisons, there are some bits I like about the games, other bits I don't. Certainly, they are a perfectly viable way to have a fun evening. But, YMMV, these things are ultimately subjective.

I played both games for many years, hundreds of games across multiple editions, and for the most part had a great deal of fun doing so. They've helped me meet some interesting people. The fact I don't play the games now is more to do with how many times I have played it, rather than any negative comment about the games themselves (the rules being cyclical in terms of how they change between editions - come back in a later edition, chances are the rules are now similar to an earlier, preferred edition), and that I must have disgorged at 18,000 marines from Rhinos over the years. Oh, and that I resented the army I had spent hundreds of hours converting and painting getting carpet-bombed by some of the Tonka-toy style fliers of the new edition

I think though, like a favoured old album or computer game, you can always come back to a wargame you enjoyed, even if you have since moved on to other things.

I have been playing warhammer since I was 10, it has a great background, and although others dont like the rules I enjoy them. I wish things were a little tighter, but most of the rules debates I see are easily resolved and I can usually see how it was intended but the wording is a bit off.

I have tried warmachine and did not like the game play style.

I looked at the other systems but really could not really get into them.

But then again Warhammer is mainly about the fluff for me, I love it. I just use the rules to live it out on the tabletop as well as a slight competitive outlet. So for that reason it works for me better than other things.

Th eOP has to put a LOT of caveats in.

I think that speaks volumes.

However, as a "tell stories" style of gamer, I love the huge playground 40K background gives you. That alone makes it compellingfor new players.

To say, I have never ever been impressed with the 40k and Warhammer rules, never really got into the games because of that. Even by fluff standards I defiantly feel more so 40k is quite outdated compared to many current age settings.

That being said, I am a gamer who either wants to play very strategy based wargames or games that truly stick too their fluff which 40k does neither of. However one game GW did produce that I have to say I still think is ( was as its not supported anymore though it really never was to begin with :/) was Epic. That game gave a really nice feel and scale and is by far the only GW game I have ever played that I thought was really well done and worth the money ( even though my army was all alternative miniatures ).

Yes 40k and warhammer have a larger fan base in most areas ( though averagely I feel defiantly those two games along with the GW line are dying out in many areas, being replaced by other games) but that is really I think the only reason they are still so prevalent is due to the ease of getting a game in at any FLGS.

I do enjoy good fluff based games, and either play very stratagem based style wargames like DBA. For fluff games I really want to play ones that more have a feel of a story unfolding as you play the game and tends to be less about completive play and more a mix of RPG managing your force and watching them develop their own traits ect. However you could also have a very fluffy strategic style wargame with each force having its own unique feel and style fitting with their fluff ( Epic comes to mind in this area again).

So to be fair on many game rules I have read, I always come across many things that make a game more complex than it needs to be. DBA is a very good example of keeping things streamlined for the most part and yet the game plays very well, Epic like wise as well and I am sure Dropzone Commander feels very similar. In the end, I don't think at all 40k and Warhammer are even close to worth their value compared to many games on the market. I don't tend to like line them up and march forward style games that are way to much out of scale ( 40k and Warhammer) in the larger scales of 28mm - 32mm I would look for either skirmish games, or one I am working on myself which will more or less be multi based units representing a platoon or so, which then allows you to play that scale or any scale, and play a larger scale game with using a 4 by 4, or 3 by 3, even a small game on a 2 by 2, instead of using a 4 by 8 which is just too large for me personally.


Anyhow no hate on anyone, I just would just personally pick up a less known game and try pushing that at your local clubs, I have seen more than one X - wing group form that way ( which is also I can say a brilliant game in itself ).

with best regards - Shawn.

If you play GW and games from other designers you'll see just how rubbish these rules are.

The most striking contrast is Warhammer Fantasy and Kings of War. KoW has similar gameplay, much better balance and no auto-win stuff like 6-spells, yet fits the rules into 15-20 pages that can easily be learned in a game or two. Fantasy has a fething novel that achieves less with a far higher word count. Interestingly, the KoW rules are written by the same guy who did previous editions of Warhammer Fantasy, so you know it's completely the influence of GW that caused this.

 Azazelx wrote:


How about fun? I tend to find fun is a good reason to play a game. I'm not interested in the tournament scene, or playing arseholes - so I'm sure I skip most of the worst of the hyper-competitive win-at-all-costs playerbase, but as a game between friends, any edition of 40k certainly delivers fun, just as X-Wing or any number of other games and systems will also do for you...

You may have fun with the game, but we're talking about a new player who won't have the experience with the rules and such that you do. For new players, while they may enjoy 40k if they get into it, they're also very likely to get the same amount of fun from other games for far less money and far simpler, easier, and deeper rulesets.

But then again Warhammer is mainly about the fluff for me, I love it. I just use the rules to live it out on the tabletop as well as a slight competitive outlet. So for that reason it works for me better than other things.

The fluff is great, but the biggest problem here is that, as Sir Biscuit on 3++ put it, the rules simply don't match that fluff.

Just think about it, and you'll see they really don't. To be honest, I've had more fluffy battles using In the Emperor's Name. Epic 40k and to a lesser extent Zone Mortalis do a better job of it as well.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
I don't know about fantasy, but I believe 40k could stand on its own. So much crazy stuff can happen when both players(or 4 or more players even) are just out for a fun game. Its a ton of fun when everyone keeps it casual, and is just hanging out for a good time with friends.

So what? ANY game can do this with the right people. 40k is nothing special here, the only reason you have fun with 40k and not some other game is that you're already playing 40k for other reasons (models, it's what your friends all play, etc).

 Azazelx wrote:
The 40k changes between 2nd-3rd ed were very much about a lot of substantial fundamental system changes. Armour, cover, movement.. I could go on, but it was very much a different game - as was RT to 2nd Edition (Herohammer). Since then, they've been playing the iteration game again, but 3rd was a hugely fun, nice, clean, streamlined game when it came out.

It's not just an issue of complexity, it's also about bad design decisions. Why is 40k stuck with such an unrealistic and anti-fun turn structure? Because that's what WHFB used 30 years ago. Why does 40k still use a D6 system where the only part of the theoretical 1-10 attribute range that ever gets used is 3-4 (and occasionally 5 in really special cases)? Because 30 years ago they declared that marines were all 4s. Why does 40k spend half of its stat line on melee attributes and only one on shooting in a game that should be based around shooting fluff-wise? Because it's a re-skinning of a 30-year-old fantasy game where melee combat was the most important thing. Etc. Many of the problems with modern 40k are the direct result of GW's refusal to abandon design decisions from 30 years ago and properly update their games.

 Talizvar wrote:
I have found time and time again that a very carefully balanced game is.... boring.
The over the top charcters, mechs, any difficult to overcome opponent piece makes for an exciting game.
Fighting against the odds and succeeding is talked about more than the grinder games where only a couple models survived (other than how long and drawn out it was).

Sorry, but that's just ridiculous. Balanced games are more fun and exciting because the outcome depends on player decisions and not the fact that one player spammed an unbalanced design mistake.

And yes, powerful units have a place, but that's why there's a point-based system. If you want a powerful unit you should have to pay for it. The problem is GW doesn't understand how to balance point costs so you get cheap units that are also more powerful than expensive units.

I find 40k to be a pretty enjoyable game. It's fairly easy to get into with the basic rules and you can add in or leave things out as you want - like mysterious terrain / objectives etc.

Of course, like most things, the deeper you go down the rabbit hole the more issues you are likely to come across.

For example, take a very simple game like chess. For the vast majority of people they'll try to problem solve each move and come up with strategies for how to beat their opponent; and they will have fun. However if you stick with it, working towards becoming a grand master, then you will reach a point where the vast majority of games boil down to how good your memory is. Instead of thinking through each step, you are just following a preplanned script based on where pieces are currently on the board while hoping your opponent has forgotten the appropriate defense / offense. At that point Chess wouldn't be enjoyable to me anymore.

Now, back to 40k: The game itself has a lot to offer. It's fairly easy to through some models together (DV box) and get started shooting/punching your opponent. This alone is worth it's weight in gold to GW for enticing new players. It also has a fairly deep "discovery" phase. This is the part where you explore the other rules and start working out more of the details; people, being curious entities by default, generally love that. If they didn't, they wouldn't even be looking at wargames to begin with.

Can you get to the point where everything is prescripted? Maybe. It's certainly MUCH harder when you have a decent base of players to go against; and nearly impossible if those players regularly change their lists. You can certainly get to the point where a number of things (like deployment based on mission and certain units your opponent may have) should have been thought out ahead of time; but with the randomness thrown in there is certainly room for making tactical decisions.

Does it offer that new/casual player more than another system like Warmachine or Infinity?

From a value perspective: absolutely. For $100 US you get the full rulebook and 48 miniatures. With Warmachine that same $100 will buy you 8 models ( 2 starter kits which include free rules). For Infinity it looks like $100 with get you 12 starter models. For someone on the outside it sure looks like the GW box is a MUCH better deal. Of course, I like miniatures in general. For someone that isn't crazy about having a lot of models then this might not matter.

From an ongoing playability perspective: I think so as well. There are far more expansions to 40k between Apoc, planetstrike, etc than there are for the other game systems. This provides a tremendous amount of material to cover just about any type of battle you'd want to do, including campaigns.

Currently, the 40k universe is much deeper than any other system. This provides a lot of material that can translate into a more enjoyable table top experience.

 frozenwastes wrote:
You do raise a very good point though-- how mentally taxing does a given player want their game to be? I don't play in Warmachine/Hordes tournaments as after my second WM/H game in a day, I've had my fill of that approach.

So this is a point that I'm going to admit is an advantage for 40k and WFB. It's easier to play for long periods of time and can be a far more relaxing experience than a game that demands a constant watch of rules interactions, threat ranges, etc., in order to play competently.

This is a very good point.

As an example, my friends and I can easily play a couple of games of 40k in one day. For all of its special rules and at times obtuse mechanics, it's still not a complicated game to play. 'Pushing plastic soldiers around the table' is an apt description.

Compare that to the game of Infinity my friend and I recently had. Holy gak what an effort. I love the game dearly, and it's quickly becoming my favorite system overall, but that game was literally a headache. After keeping track of unit and weapon profiles, reading up on rules I hadn't used yet - speculative parabolic fire, jumping, climbing, falling (at the same time), hacking, etc I actually needed a painkiller afterwards because I really did have a headache. Afterwards, neither of us had the energy for a second game.

Different games scratch different itches. If you have a more relaxed group who aren't going to nitpick rules oddities and want a more laid back game with a great universe to draw inspiration from, 40k and Fantasy are good games.

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:


How about fun? I tend to find fun is a good reason to play a game. I'm not interested in the tournament scene, or playing arseholes - so I'm sure I skip most of the worst of the hyper-competitive win-at-all-costs playerbase, but as a game between friends, any edition of 40k certainly delivers fun, just as X-Wing or any number of other games and systems will also do for you...

You may have fun with the game, but we're talking about a new player who won't have the experience with the rules and such that you do. For new players, while they may enjoy 40k if they get into it, they're also very likely to get the same amount of fun from other games for far less money and far simpler, easier, and deeper rulesets.

While I won't dispute the points you're making here, I was replying to:

The only reason to play 40k and WFB is because a lot of other people play them.

So "fun" is still a valid point.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
The 40k changes between 2nd-3rd ed were very much about a lot of substantial fundamental system changes. Armour, cover, movement.. I could go on, but it was very much a different game - as was RT to 2nd Edition (Herohammer). Since then, they've been playing the iteration game again, but 3rd was a hugely fun, nice, clean, streamlined game when it came out.

It's not just an issue of complexity, it's also about bad design decisions. Why is 40k stuck with such an unrealistic and anti-fun turn structure? Because that's what WHFB used 30 years ago. Why does 40k still use a D6 system where the only part of the theoretical 1-10 attribute range that ever gets used is 3-4 (and occasionally 5 in really special cases)? Because 30 years ago they declared that marines were all 4s. Why does 40k spend half of its stat line on melee attributes and only one on shooting in a game that should be based around shooting fluff-wise? Because it's a re-skinning of a 30-year-old fantasy game where melee combat was the most important thing. Etc. Many of the problems with modern 40k are the direct result of GW's refusal to abandon design decisions from 30 years ago and properly update their games.

Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you here. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with IGOUGO. If you don't like it, you can simply play other games that don't use it. Similarly with D6s. Rogue Trader used all kinds of dice (even used percentile tables), and so did second edition. It was in 3rd when everything got streamlined to D6s, so you're completely wrong on that one. Again, going to posit that while the stats may have initially been reskinned from WFB, they work fine for a game that's not based around shooting, fluff-wise, but around space fantasy/space-LotR where people use swords, axes, claws and shields almost as much as they do pistols and rifles. It's sci-fi D&D, not sci-fi WW2. (though it has elements of everything, due to "inspiration".

I'd suggest the problems with modern 40k are things like the basic fundamentals, but things like Codex Creep, inconsistent writing, too many cooks pulling the game in too many directions (ie directives from marketing) - and the problem that relates to all of those of "we need to remake the books, with new, more betterrer units with more special rules" which is driven by marketing and also the playerbase that always wants something newer and more powerful and bitches like a bunch of whiny schoolchildren when something new isn't percirved as powerful enough..

Which is why I sigh when I see threads bitching that Space Hulk isn't "supported" with new models and new rules, or in the October-Inquisition rumour thread where people were going on about how a new release needs to be constantly be supported with new releases. There's something to be said about closed systems - or at the very least ones where new options are very limited and balanced in scope.