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 Peregrine wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
But codexes/rulebooks are a matter of how much time/resources are available. Many people in this would clearly prefer that gw spent more time on them first, many many other people don't mind.

And the point is that other companies, many of which don't have GW's level of resources, manage to create much better rules. GW rules are only as bad as they are because GW's internal culture is "we're a beer and pretzels company so we don't have to try very hard".

One thing that's always bothered me about GW's "Beer and Pretzels" game is that whenever I've mixed RPGs/Tabletop games with drinking, I've always appreciated well written, concise rulesets more. It's a hell of a lot easier to understand properly written rules when you're spinning than it is to understand whatever GW puts in their books.

How "good" are the rules?
"Good" by definition is sloppy all on it's own.
That depends on what you think is "good".

Good enough for me and my friends to play and have fun.

Good enough to march a variety of models around and kill stuff in a somewhat epic way.

Good enough for dealing with TFG or WAAC players?
Not a chance.

I put this under category of beer and pretzels game.

If you are trying to put it on a pedestal of a grand strategy game, I have swampland to sell you.

It will NEVER be "good enough" for some.
It CAN be better, but the company chooses not to.
If it does not suit you, move-on to product more to your liking.

@xruslanx I think your viewpoint of "more boring" is removing the "gray zone" some players I have taken on, base an entire army on a rule exploit, that is why the rules are so "good" for them.

I know you weren't hugely implying this, but why does a "beer and pretzels" game HAVE to be bad or lack strategy though? I wish the term hadn't become synonymous with making sloppy rules. :(

 Peregrine wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I can't envisage anything written without any "gray area, shady wording or questions at all" that was also fun and fluffy. A game as large and complex as 40k is bound to create rule frictions, the only way you could eliminate these would be by crushing all fun things out of the game completely.

Again, MTG. Fluffy, complex, fun, and absolutely no ambiguity in the rules.

*The old changeling

*Space Marine doctrines

*Psychic powers that were basic and/or shooting attacks

*Warpstorm table

*Virtually any fluffy or cool special rule

Nonsense. Every one of those things could be written with absolutely no ambiguity. GW just doesn't bother to do it.

Of course if you think those things are impossible then you could explain why, instead of just listing a bunch of random stuff and complaining about how the rules wouldn't be fun if everyone understood what they did.

he's trolling

xruslanx wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

I don't think you get what I'm saying at all, but I realize we're probably not going to reach an agreement on this, so I'll let it be.

I still don't get how you see "rules that make sense and can't be abused" as boring, but hey, if that's what you like out of a game, good for you.

I will say that there are fluffy/cool special rules that were still tightly written. Imperial Guard orders are one example I can think of off the top of my head. Every order sounds like something a commander would say, they are all clearly described as to what they do, there's no confusion as to when or how you do them, and they all make sense as something you would expect IG to do. Its one of the few rules in 40k that I think perfectly fit the character of the army and wasn't open to abuse or confusing. The only time they ever got even remotely cloudy was when 6th hit and allies became a thing, where they FAQ'd it pretty quickly with the sensible answer I.E. Only IG units can be given orders and only use the highest IG leadership in the unit. The orders framework was also really easy to understand and if you wanted to come up with homebrew orders it was incredibly easy.

I don't want to "reach an agreement", the only reason I'm responding to you is because you seem like you appreciate the discussion of ideas more than some adolescent notion of "winning" an argument.

IG orders are by their nature "tight". All they do is augment existing rules, boosting shooting usually, or defensiveness. Just adding a couple of dice here or there.

But imagine how dull the rest of 40k would be with that philosophy. Chaos Deamons would be "just another army". Special charectors would rapidly become bland and uninteresting, Grey Knights probably wouldn't work (since they are a dedicated anti-deamon army, hence imbalanced against deamons). I don't see how many of the fun and cool things that I, and the millions of people who enjoy playing 40, enjoy, could be fit into a "tight" ruleset.

Ok now I get why we're disagreeing. We just have different notions of what makes a rule fluffy and interesting.

Because to me, IG orders are very fluffy and fit the flavor of the army very well, as well as giving it a unique character. They're not just a way to add dice here and there, they're a way to represent your officers barking orders to the men. Occasionally a unit will lose their nerve or not hear the officer, or they'll respond to the order in record time and another can get instructions that it normally couldn't, which helped add to that feeling of a raging battle full of chaos and confusion. Yes, in reality all you were getting was some extra rerolls here and there, but that's why it works so well. It works WITH the rules, not against them. For a player who has never played against IG, all I need to tell him is "this unit is twin linked against monstrous creatures or vehicles" and he can understand perfectly what I'm doing. On top of that, it still fits the idea of what the commander is telling his men to do. If the platoon commander yells "INCOMING!" its only natural to think his men might do a better job of taking cover than if they were caught by surprise without a warning. The rules don't need to be needlessy complex, a simple "+2 for going to ground instead of +1" perfectly conveys what the order does and keeps it easy to understand.

Which is what you want in any game system. You want to give an army character and uniqueness, yet keep it so that any player reading the rule will understand what's going on, ideally using "generic" terms used regardless of army. It doesn't matter if I've got fearless Orks or Fearless Guardsmen, they're still fearless, so they both can use the same Fearless standard rule. There's no point in calling their rules different names if they both have the same effect.

xruslanx wrote:
Well by definition a "tight" ruleset won't have the looseness nessesary to create fun rules.

Lets see this definition then...

As to your statement, the existence of warmachine/hordes and their hundreds of unique warlocks and warcasters demonstrates the falseness of your statement. Pp run an incredibly tight ship when it comes to rules, and yet they have a massive stable of unique, fun rules and characters.

Read epic butchers fluff. Now play him on the table top. Rules match his fluff perfectly, and no one else in the entire game is anything like him.

xruslanx wrote:
I can't envisage anything written without any "gray area, shady wording or questions at all" that was also fun and fluffy. A game as large and complex as 40k is bound to create rule frictions, the only way you could eliminate these would be by crushing all fun things out of the game completely.

There are tonnes of stuff that wouldn't fit within a "tight" ruleset:

*The old changeling

*Space Marine doctrines

*Psychic powers that were basic and/or shooting attacks

*Warpstorm table

*Virtually any fluffy or cool special rule

I get what you're saying, I just don't see why you want to actively make 40k more boring. I don't go around telling other games that they need to be more fun

I'll just repeat what I said above: the existence of warmachine/hordes and their hundreds of unique warlocks and warcasters demonstrates the falseness of your statement. Pp run an incredibly tight ship when it comes to rules, and yet they have a massive stable of unique, fun rules and characters.

Read epic butchers fluff. Now play him on the table top. Rules match his fluff perfectly, and no one else in the entire game is anything like him

Characterful rules and tight rules and fun rules are not mutually exclusive. Games like warmachine/hordes, infinity, dystopian wars, flames of war etc prove this repeatedly.

Have you ever played any other games?

xruslanx wrote:
I don't want to "reach an agreement", the only reason I'm responding to you is because you seem like you appreciate the discussion of ideas more than some adolescent notion of "winning" an argument.

But imagine how dull the rest of 40k would be with that philosophy. Chaos Deamons would be "just another army". Special charectors would rapidly become bland and uninteresting, Grey Knights probably wouldn't work (since they are a dedicated anti-deamon army, hence imbalanced against deamons). I don't see how many of the fun and cool things that I, and the millions of people who enjoy playing 40, enjoy, could be fit into a "tight" ruleset.

Then you're extremely short sighted in your assessment. Have you any experience of other games? Do you have any experience of other games design ethos? You know... especially the ones where tight rules are actually not 'dull' but 'fun' too? where special characters habe fantastic flavour and unique playstyles - because these games do exist. When you do acknowledge them, and play them, then we'll talk...

I'm all up for discussion of ideas but that involves your participation too - you've failed to address (or acknowledge, even) any point, for example, that demonstrates how tight we'll written rules can actually add to the fun of a game.

xruslanx wrote:
Well now that I know all this thread is is neckbeards demanding perfection from everything, I don't feel bad about leaving.

Toodles!

I'd like to see a quote of this demanding perfection thing. I've not seen it. As to neck beards - yeah, real mature. Personal attacks are the last refuge when ones arguments have been shown to be empty and it hour merit. Keep it up !

I'm on his ignore list, and he's on mine, so wouldn't be aware of what he was saying if you lot didn't keep quoting him, but xruslanx is given to the odd personal insult, from my perspective, usually when the discussion isn't going his way.

He called me a nerd once.

On Dakka!

 azreal13 wrote:
I'm on his ignore list, and he's on mine, so wouldn't be aware of what he was saying if you lot didn't keep quoting him, but xruslanx is given to the odd personal insult, from my perspective, usually when the discussion isn't going his way.

He called me a nerd once.

On Dakka!

Wait... he called you a nerd?

I thought you said that he was insulting....

The Auld Grump - we're all nerd here... I'm nerd, you're nerd... You must be, or you wouldn't have come here.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
I'm on his ignore list, and he's on mine, so wouldn't be aware of what he was saying if you lot didn't keep quoting him, but xruslanx is given to the odd personal insult, from my perspective, usually when the discussion isn't going his way.

He called me a nerd once.

On Dakka!

Wait... he called you a nerd?

I thought you said that he was insulting....

The Auld Grump - we're all nerd here... I'm nerd, you're nerd... You must be, or you wouldn't have come here.

I don't know. They let me mod. Something's gotta be wrong with the place.

Really what it comes down to is if you hate the rules so much quit playing, and if you quit playing there is only one question left for you.

Niexist wrote:
Really what it comes down to is if you hate the rules so much quit playing, and if you quit playing there is only one question left for you.

Ah good, so instead of rationally discussing the aspects of 40k that could be improved upon and maybe broadening your wargaming views, you post a simple image with the classic internet tag 'can i haz ur stuff'.

Well, at least it was an attempt to lighten the tension.

But one of the advantages of liking fantasy and playing other games... I can find other uses for my old stuff....

The Auld Grump

Niexist wrote:
Really what it comes down to is if you hate the rules so much quit playing, ...

It's really not that simple for a lot of gamers.

I've been playing 40K for nearly 20 years now. I have 9 or 10 armies (and several more still sitting in boxes), and a lot of time, effort and money gone into this game over that time. Up until 6th edition, I've mostly enjoyed the game, aside from the latter half of 4th when I decided to stop playing and wait it out in the hope that 5th edition would be better (it was).

But dropping the game completely is not easy when you have invested so much into it. That's why people who have been in the game for a while tend to feel so strongly about the need for improvement when the game heads in a direction that they don't like. It's simply not as easy as saying 'Oh well, I'll go do something else instead...' because then, what the hell do I do with all of these armies? I have no desire to get rid of them.... I sold one army way back in 2nd edition, and I've regretted it ever since. That's my hobby craft I'm selling there... It's one thing when it's something that you have created specifically to sell, but quite another to part with stuff that you have done for yourself.

6th edition 40K started out really promising. Despite the initial obvious flaws, the basic system looked fun, and my first few games were a blast. But then once we all settled in a bit, and the loopholes, typos and grey areas started to come out, it became more and more apparent that GW just aren't trying any more. The rushed out codexes with their own share of issues, and the push towards more and more supplements (which will last right up until their core codex is updated and then leave you with a niche army that is suddenly obsolete, just like the last time GW went the supplemental codex route) makes it clear that GW are far more interested in selling books than in writing them.

But we've been down this road before. 5th edition was a huge improvement over 4th. So those of us who have been around a while, and who have so much invested into the game, have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, 7th edition will also be better than the current mess.

So I'm not selling everything off... But I'll be sticking to painting some of my backlog, and playing Warmachine instead, while I wait it out and see what happens next...

I haven't liked any of the other games I've played really. I think warmachine, infinity and kings of war are all a bit rubbish and don't get me started on dreadball which is utterly crap. I like board games but other wargames? Nothings really caught my eye (dystopian wars aside)
WHFB is in a really bad place now. It is not tactical at all. Stupid units and fluff and turbo charged magic phases. Big blcks of infantry who don't care about flank charges. 40k is the only game in town despite its flaws......

I am working on my own version of fantasy out of sheer frustration. I think I've got the rules down but I need a universe to set it in that's not too clichéd. Anyone know of any original fantasy settings to plunder?

jamin484 wrote:
I haven't liked any of the other games I've played really. I think warmachine, infinity and kings of war are all a bit rubbish and don't get me started on dreadball which is utterly crap. I like board games but other wargames? Nothings really caught my eye (dystopian wars aside)
WHFB is in a really bad place now. It is not tactical at all. Stupid units and fluff and turbo charged magic phases. Big blcks of infantry who don't care about flank charges. 40k is the only game in town despite its flaws......

I am working on my own version of fantasy out of sheer frustration. I think I've got the rules down but I need a universe to set it in that's not too clichéd. Anyone know of any original fantasy settings to plunder?

Care to elaborate a little bit? those are very different games with very different kinds of rules, and you feel that all of these are worse than 40K? this is not criticism, I'm just curious...

On topic :
40K rules are bottom tier IMHO, and WFB are just a little bit better. I thought that GW finally did the right thing when they start to release one Codex/Army Book per month, but the rules are even worst than before...

Fortunately, there are lots of other games, and a lot of them are good. Just have to find (or write...) the right one for 40k!

 insaniak wrote:

Niexist wrote:
Really what it comes down to is if you hate the rules so much quit playing, ...

It's really not that simple for a lot of gamers.

I've been playing 40K for nearly 20 years now. I have 9 or 10 armies (and several more still sitting in boxes), and a lot of time, effort and money gone into this game over that time. Up until 6th edition, I've mostly enjoyed the game, aside from the latter half of 4th when I decided to stop playing and wait it out in the hope that 5th edition would be better (it was).

But dropping the game completely is not easy when you have invested so much into it. That's why people who have been in the game for a while tend to feel so strongly about the need for improvement when the game heads in a direction that they don't like. It's simply not as easy as saying 'Oh well, I'll go do something else instead...' because then, what the hell do I do with all of these armies? I have no desire to get rid of them.... I sold one army way back in 2nd edition, and I've regretted it ever since. That's my hobby craft I'm selling there... It's one thing when it's something that you have created specifically to sell, but quite another to part with stuff that you have done for yourself.

6th edition 40K started out really promising. Despite the initial obvious flaws, the basic system looked fun, and my first few games were a blast. But then once we all settled in a bit, and the loopholes, typos and grey areas started to come out, it became more and more apparent that GW just aren't trying any more. The rushed out codexes with their own share of issues, and the push towards more and more supplements (which will last right up until their core codex is updated and then leave you with a niche army that is suddenly obsolete, just like the last time GW went the supplemental codex route) makes it clear that GW are far more interested in selling books than in writing them.

But we've been down this road before. 5th edition was a huge improvement over 4th. So those of us who have been around a while, and who have so much invested into the game, have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, 7th edition will also be better than the current mess.

So I'm not selling everything off... But I'll be sticking to painting some of my backlog, and playing Warmachine instead, while I wait it out and see what happens next...

I know what you're saying, the problem is that no one from GW will ever read this, and even if they did they won't listen and chalk it up to the people being the vocal minority since so many of their models are selling. I imagine right now with all the vidya games that 40k is selling better than it ever has in the past, so they figure they're doing things right.

I honestly played my first game last night, and it was a cool experience, but I'd still be buying models and painting them even if I never play the game again, I love the fact that I am painting something that looks awesome to me. Maybe I could make a diorama with the figures or something, but at the moment I really enjoy the modelling, and painting more than I enjoy the game.

Niexist wrote:
I know what you're saying, the problem is that no one from GW will ever read this, and even if they did they won't listen and chalk it up to the people being the vocal minority since so many of their models are selling.

That's not a problem, since the point of this discussion isn't to provide feedback to Games Workshop. It's a bunch of people discussing their opinions of GW's rules.

WHFB is in a really bad place now. It is not tactical at all. Stupid units and fluff and turbo charged magic phases. Big blcks of infantry who don't care about flank charges.

and kings of war are all a bit rubbish

Given that KoW has been lauded as having nothing you attribute to WHFB (there are no stupid units, no magic phase at all, and flank charges being very important) I'm surprised at the negative reaction to it.

Yay... best thread ever...

/sarcasm

Arw you looking foe the world's most concise ruleset ever? GW is probably not going to be it. Sorry, it was created by people, so there will be imperfections. Are you looking for an existential experience in game design? Again, probably not the right game.

However, if you are looking for a robust system with over 20 years of plot and backstory with a pretty decent following that ensures a reasonable number of players out there, GW games are a good choice.

In otherwords, lighten up. It's a game. If you can't negotiate or laugh off a rules issue, you're taking it too seriously. It's not a job.

 Riquende wrote:

WHFB is in a really bad place now. It is not tactical at all. Stupid units and fluff and turbo charged magic phases. Big blcks of infantry who don't care about flank charges.

and kings of war are all a bit rubbish

Given that KoW has been lauded as having nothing you attribute to WHFB (there are no stupid units, no magic phase at all, and flank charges being very important) I'm surprised at the negative reaction to it.

I don't like how the units bounce off each other after combat, how they don't take casualties and get smaller and I couldn't get excited by the unit types or models (they were all a wee bit samey) The clichéd fluff wasn't exactly inspiring either. I only played it once and that was quite a while ago now so I should definitely revisit it. It seems to have expanded a lot. What's your experience of the game? I take it your a fan?

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Yay... best thread ever...

/sarcasm

Arw you looking foe the world's most concise ruleset ever? GW is probably not going to be it. Sorry, it was created by people, so there will be imperfections. Are you looking for an existential experience in game design? Again, probably not the right game.

Straw man arguments are the best arguments, because straw man arguments never end.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:


In otherwords, lighten up. It's a game. If you can't negotiate or laugh off a rules issue, you're taking it too seriously. It's not a job.

Straw man argument. This game's not for fun.

It's to show how smart you are, how everyone else is wrong. After all, that's the opinion of half the people on this thread.

jamin484 wrote:
I don't like how the units bounce off each other after combat, how they don't take casualties and get smaller and I couldn't get excited by the unit types or models (they were all a wee bit samey) The clichéd fluff wasn't exactly inspiring either. I only played it once and that was quite a while ago now so I should definitely revisit it. It seems to have expanded a lot. What's your experience of the game? I take it your a fan?

Well I play it from time to time, which is more than I've ever been able to do with WHFB (I had one demo and hated it). Not having casualty removal is a big plus (IMO) and it's becoming more common in 'popular' rulesets, what with the Warlord Historicals all using it. Why paint 40 guys if half them are going back in the case in the first turn? Also, diorama multibasing is a fantastic tool for hobbyists that WHFB just can't offer. It's worth revisiting I think, as it's just had about a year or so of major expansion in terms of units, models and things like magic items, which might alleviate some of your issues.

I think you're stuck with the 'bounce' though!

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:


In otherwords, lighten up. It's a game. If you can't negotiate or laugh off a rules issue, you're taking it too seriously. It's not a job.

Straw man argument. This game's not for fun.

It's to show how smart you are, how everyone else is wrong. After all, that's the opinion of half the people on this thread.

I know right, how dare they want to play a game where their choices matter instead of just putting models on a table and seeing who can roll a 6 first!

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

Arw you looking foe the world's most concise ruleset ever? GW is probably not going to be it. Sorry, it was created by people, so there will be imperfections. Are you looking for an existential experience in game design? Again, probably not the right game.

Going by the thread so far, no, nobody is looking for any of those things.

However, if you are looking for a robust system with over 20 years of plot and backstory with a pretty decent following that ensures a reasonable number of players out there, GW games are a good choice.

The question posed at the start of the thread was about how good people think the rules are, not how popular the games are.

The two concepts are not automatically synonymous.

. If you can't negotiate or laugh off a rules issue, you're taking it too seriously. It's not a job.

Most people are quite capable of 'negotiating our laughing off' rules issues. That doesn't mean that they have to like the necessity of doing so, when a better written rulebook could remove that necessity and let them just get on with playing the game.

That's the part that confuses me about these sorts of threads: why are some people so opposed to the idea of the rules being better?

 insaniak wrote:

That's the part that confuses me about these sorts of threads: why are some people so opposed to the idea of the rules being better?

They aren't, they just literally have never played anything else, its the only possible answer.

Its like trying to explain colours to someone that was born blind... At this point I just feel very, very sorry for them...

 insaniak wrote:
That's the part that confuses me about these sorts of threads: why are some people so opposed to the idea of the rules being better?

It's GW's greatest marketing success. They've managed to convince a non-trivial percentage of their customers that not only should they accept low-quality rules, they should be proud of those low-quality rules because the worse the rules are the more of a "beer and pretzels" game it is. Accepting the possibility of better rules would mean admitting that you're one of those WAAC TFGs who cares about the rules and doesn't understand that it's all about fun and pushing models around the table while spending time with friends.

My point isn't that GW's rules can't get better. Anything is able to be improved. My point is that whining about it accomplishes nothing.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
My point is that whining about it accomplishes nothing.

Kind of like posting in whine threads to whine about them?

 Peregrine wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
My point is that whining about it accomplishes nothing.

Kind of like posting in whine threads to whine about them?

Oh the irony