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 Peregrine wrote:

Nobody is disputing that you've had fun with GW games. What we have a problem with is your ridiculous "argument" that GW's games can't be improved and things like clearer rules would make them worse.

I never said that 40k couldn't be improved, or that it was flawless. I think if you understood the subtleties of my opinion fully you wouldn't bother posting at all, so it suits you to make up your own version.

xruslanx wrote:

And, again, this is obvious nonsense. MTG has rules with zero ambiguity and enough balance to have tournaments with $50k cash prizes. And yet there's still a thriving casual community, entire new releases dedicated to casual gaming, etc.

But of course you're going to ignore this just like you've ignored all of the other examples of non-GW games doing the things you claim are "impossible".

I still think that 40k would not be as popular as they currently are if the rules were more "hardcore". Cinematic rulesets (all the rules I've played since 3rd have had a strong emphasis on cinematic gameplay) encourage newcomers, this is obvious from the way that rules are tought and now newcomers get into 40k. I think an attempt to streamline those rules would probably put off youngsters.

xruslanx wrote:
I still think that 40k would not be as popular as they currently are if the rules were more "hardcore".

Do you understand the difference between "hardcore" and "clear"?

Cinematic rulesets (all the rules I've played since 3rd have had a strong emphasis on cinematic gameplay) encourage newcomers, this is obvious from the way that rules are tought and now newcomers get into 40k.

Do you understand that you can have clear and balanced rules that also produce "cinematic" (however you define such a useless term) gameplay?

I think an attempt to streamline those rules would probably put off youngsters.

Nonsense. You know what puts off youngsters (and anyone else)? A phone-book-size rulebook with a bunch of clumsy rules bolted onto the core mechanics of a 1980s fantasy game. Streamlining the rules would make it much easier to learn how to play and reduce the frequency of newbie mistakes.

xruslanx wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
Jimsolo I think the point is, with a poorly written will mostly only to 'casual' gamers who don't really care, whereas a well written ruleset can appeal to both the 'competitive' and the 'casual' for only a little bit of effort, so why not double your market?

Because once a market appeals to two types of people, rules/models/policy could also change to appeal to a more "hardcore" crowd. I think a large part of 40k's lasting popularity and appeal is its mainstream image, something which could be compromised if the rules catered to more hardcore/competative gamers.

Could you explain how this works to me because I'm not seeing it.
The aesthetic of the game won't change because the people who buy the models because they look cool won't stop buying them because the rules change, but people who don't buy in because of crappy rules will buy in if the.rules become much better.

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:
First off, lucky you for getting your GF into this. It is good to enjoy a game like that with your significant other casually and not worry about the rules (although I have to ask a bit off-topic in this part, how is Kings of War? I thought about starting it up but the models that Mantic some of the time do not sit right for me and it will be hard to get some people in without convincing. Although I might try Dreadball, since that is mostly a board game that maybe good to start out with...). Hell, even sometimes losing is a way of learning, right?

Most of the folks that I know who play KoW do so with GW figures, along with a mess of other companies, with the exception of Undead and the Ogres - both of which have some good Mantic models.



Many, many Warhammer Fantasy armies can be used, pretty much as is.

I know what you mean (probably since xruslanx is now commenting, I think it is going to begin...) that people tend to have something hold dear to them, that they cannot see it any other way. And no worries about the Warmahordes, it can get a little repetitive at times, hence why I have two armies to spice it up a bit and try other games to have a variety-is-the-spice-of-life approach,

For some, it is a game, for others... a religion.

The Auld Grump, and for yet others a lifestyle....

xruslanx wrote:
I am more than happy to discuss wargaming qualitatively, but I don't see why I should be labled as closed-minded for simply disagreeing with a quantitative analysis of a complex hobby.

That's not why you're being labeled as closed-minded. You're being labeled as closed-minded because this is the typical discussion with you:

You: "X can't be done without ruining the game."
Us: {list of examples of games that do X without being ruined.}
You: "I've never played those, they don't count."
You: "X can't be done without ruining the game."

And on we go in circles, with you continuing to repeat the same old claims no matter how many counter-examples are provided.

 Peregrine wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I still think that 40k would not be as popular as they currently are if the rules were more "hardcore".

Do you understand the difference between "hardcore" and "clear"?

Yes. But I'm assuming you're saying something other than "gw's rules should be clearer", which ranks alongside motherhood and apple pie.

Do you understand that you can have clear and balanced rules that also produce "cinematic" (however you define such a useless term) gameplay?

Ah so now "balance" is in on it? Now it really is philosophical - I believe in "perfect inbalance", which is to say I think it's a *good* think that some units get stronger and some units get weaker as army books/rulesets come out. Again, you will claim that this is somehow quantifiably invalid, when it is not. It's simply that I regard a "balanced" ruleset as being stale and uninteresting. I'm sure you disagree passionately, but clearly it is not something on which we would find common ground.

Nonsense. You know what puts off youngsters (and anyone else)? A phone-book-size rulebook with a bunch of clumsy rules bolted onto the core mechanics of a 1980s fantasy game. Streamlining the rules would make it much easier to learn how to play and reduce the frequency of newbie mistakes.

So you think the thing that puts of youngsters the most in a tabletop game, is the thing that's present in the largest tabletop game the world has ever seen?

Yo I heard that people hate burgers as fast food


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krellnus wrote:

xruslanx wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
Jimsolo I think the point is, with a poorly written will mostly only to 'casual' gamers who don't really care, whereas a well written ruleset can appeal to both the 'competitive' and the 'casual' for only a little bit of effort, so why not double your market?

Because once a market appeals to two types of people, rules/models/policy could also change to appeal to a more "hardcore" crowd. I think a large part of 40k's lasting popularity and appeal is its mainstream image, something which could be compromised if the rules catered to more hardcore/competative gamers.

Could you explain how this works to me because I'm not seeing it.
The aesthetic of the game won't change because the people who buy the models because they look cool won't stop buying them because the rules change, but people who don't buy in because of crappy rules will buy in if the.rules become much better.

Well people who advocate a more competitive ruleset, presumably must be advocating it with the assumption that such a change by GW would increase the number of competative players, otherwise they wouldn't be advocating it. If you get more competitive players in 40k, I would assume that the rest of 40k would therefore cater more to competative players and less to newcomers.

I suspect that competative players put up with the rules, and casual players enjoy them. Making the ruleset more "competative", whatever that means, won't actually increase sales from that group since they (begrudgingly) are into it anyway.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:
First off, lucky you for getting your GF into this. It is good to enjoy a game like that with your significant other casually and not worry about the rules (although I have to ask a bit off-topic in this part, how is Kings of War? I thought about starting it up but the models that Mantic some of the time do not sit right for me and it will be hard to get some people in without convincing. Although I might try Dreadball, since that is mostly a board game that maybe good to start out with...). Hell, even sometimes losing is a way of learning, right?

Most of the folks that I know who play KoW do so with GW figures, along with a mess of other companies, with the exception of Undead and the Ogres - both of which have some good Mantic models.

Spoiler:

My girlfriend's army is a mix of Mantic, GW, Stonehaven, Avatars of War, and Reaper miniatures.... She started with my army, and is growing her own army from that start. About all that they have in common is using 3/4 inch bases - not even that for some of the units - the AoW Pathfinders are on a scenic unit base, made from insulation foam, cut to look like a small bluff.

Julie (another player - who plays with her significant other) uses a bunch of Mantic Twilight Kin and Raging Heroes Vestals - but she is really looking forward to the Raging Heroes Dark Elf Kickstarter. It is likely that they will be entirely RH when she gets her mitts on the Kickstarter.

Jon (the above mentioned Significant Other) plays undead, entirely Mantic.

I know somebody else that has a GW Ogres army, but plans on using just the Mantic Ogres, when he gets them finished. (Their ogres look great.)

Chris uses a mix of goblins from all over the place - currently he plays Warhammer, but intends to try KoW in the near future.

Another, as yet unpainted, army is a mix of Mantic, Warlord, and Perry models - a Basilean Army that was begun too late for him to join the Kickstarter, but he got sucked in when somebody on these boards described the Basileans as 'Chaos as the Good Guys' or something to that effect. (Sadly, the men at arms figures are disappointing. All the other Basileans are good, though.)

Many, many Warhammer Fantasy armies can be used, pretty much as is.

If they had a Lizardmen army and other people had the same, I probably do it in a heartbeat...
Although if I could see if their was a group around, I wanted to try to make a Kingdoms of Men army based around Ancient Greece/ Rome a bit.

would be nice if GW actually updated their FAQ on a more regular basis. Hell with the price of the codexes I dont think its to much to ask.

Having rules for the sake of having rules is silly. I think 40k could do with more thought put into making things clear and less on power creep codexes to push sales. But thats just me being an old romantic I suppose

xruslanx wrote:
Yes. But I'm assuming you're saying something other than "gw's rules should be clearer", which ranks alongside motherhood and apple pie.

So you're assuming that I'm demanding some kind of "hardcore" rules (for your personal definition of "hardcore") in addition to clarity just because you want me to be making that demand? Do you know what a straw man is?

Now it really is philosophical - I believe in "perfect inbalance", which is to say I think it's a *good* think that some units get stronger and some units get weaker as army books/rulesets come out.

That's not what GW has. The idea of "perfect imbalance" is that you deliberately manipulate power levels to create an interesting metagame over time. For example, AA units might be weak when flyers are rare, but powerful when a flyer-based army is popular. GW, on the other hand, just sucks at game balance. The 5-Riptide Tau list doesn't exist because GW did it deliberately, it exists because they're too incompetent to realize that letting Tau ally with Tau means bringing two more of the overpowered best unit in the codex.

It's simply that I regard a "balanced" ruleset as being stale and uninteresting.

And you believe this because you've never played a balanced game. If you had you'd realize that it's unbalanced games that are stale and boring because all you have to do to win is identify the most overpowered balance mistakes (or just ask a forum) and then take them. The game is reduced to the same few overpowered choices and the theoretical diversity of having lots of options is thrown away.

So you think the thing that puts of youngsters the most in a tabletop game, is the thing that's present in the largest tabletop game the world has ever seen?

You do realize that people play 40k for reasons besides how much they love the rules, right? And that many of GW's customers never even play the game?

Yo I heard that people hate burgers as fast food

Oh good, that ridiculous analogy again. Burgers may be popular, but I don't think you're going to find any restaurant critics arguing that a big mac is the height of fine dining.

Actually, on second thought, it's a great analogy. GW, like fast food burger places, puts out a garbage product that is cheap and well-marketed. It's adequate if you're hungry or desperate to play a game, but that's about it.

Well people who advocate a more competitive ruleset, presumably must be advocating it with the assumption that such a change by GW would increase the number of competative players, otherwise they wouldn't be advocating it. If you get more competitive players in 40k, I would assume that the rest of 40k would therefore cater more to competative players and less to newcomers.

Here's a better idea: learn from MTG and market to everyone. Casual players are happy with MTG, and competitive players are happy with MTG. Everyone gets what they want. Only with GW games do you have the absurd assumption that only one player group can be happy at a time.

I suspect that competative players put up with the rules, and casual players enjoy them.

Casual players don't, as a general rule, enjoy the rules, they just find them adequate to allow the things they do enjoy: the fluff and models.

Infinity is for the most part concise with its rules, everything for the most part makes sense. But, there are some grey areas in it (although I am not sure if CB wrote it as it was, or if it a translation from Spanish to English) and some of the rules can use a bit of tightening up, but for the most part, it is nothing like 40k/Fantasy.

This. Infinity rules are amazing in that you can say "well, what would make logical sense here" and them BAM, someone finds an FAQ or whatever clarifying it as exactly that.

Only exception is the Retreat=End of Game rule in ITS. That rule is just horrid. Rush up and grab objectives, get massacred, game suddenly ends with your victory before the other guy can walk up and take them when in reality he should have no trouble doing so. Terrible.

 Peregrine wrote:

Here's a better idea: learn from MTG and market to everyone. Casual players are happy with MTG, and competitive players are happy with MTG. Everyone gets what they want. Only with GW games do you have the absurd assumption that only one player group can be happy at a time.

I agree with most of your post, peregrine, but just a nitpick here:

I was driven away from MTG because of the prevalence of competitive players. They may not have been the top-of-the-line regional champs or something, but every week people would spend ~$50 just to stay on top of the pack, and I didn't want to do that so I basically lost every single game until I gave up.

EDIT: and this was me and like six dudes in high school. I shudder to think what would have happened if I took my Angel tribal deck into a store.

xruslanx wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I still think that 40k would not be as popular as they currently are if the rules were more "hardcore".

Do you understand the difference between "hardcore" and "clear"?

Yes. But I'm assuming you're saying something other than "gw's rules should be clearer", which ranks alongside motherhood and apple pie.

Do you understand that you can have clear and balanced rules that also produce "cinematic" (however you define such a useless term) gameplay?

Ah so now "balance" is in on it? Now it really is philosophical - I believe in "perfect inbalance", which is to say I think it's a *good* think that some units get stronger and some units get weaker as army books/rulesets come out. Again, you will claim that this is somehow quantifiably invalid, when it is not. It's simply that I regard a "balanced" ruleset as being stale and uninteresting. I'm sure you disagree passionately, but clearly it is not something on which we would find common ground.

Nonsense. You know what puts off youngsters (and anyone else)? A phone-book-size rulebook with a bunch of clumsy rules bolted onto the core mechanics of a 1980s fantasy game. Streamlining the rules would make it much easier to learn how to play and reduce the frequency of newbie mistakes.

So you think the thing that puts of youngsters the most in a tabletop game, is the thing that's present in the largest tabletop game the world has ever seen?

Yo I heard that people hate burgers as fast food


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krellnus wrote:

xruslanx wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
Jimsolo I think the point is, with a poorly written will mostly only to 'casual' gamers who don't really care, whereas a well written ruleset can appeal to both the 'competitive' and the 'casual' for only a little bit of effort, so why not double your market?

Because once a market appeals to two types of people, rules/models/policy could also change to appeal to a more "hardcore" crowd. I think a large part of 40k's lasting popularity and appeal is its mainstream image, something which could be compromised if the rules catered to more hardcore/competative gamers.

Could you explain how this works to me because I'm not seeing it.
The aesthetic of the game won't change because the people who buy the models because they look cool won't stop buying them because the rules change, but people who don't buy in because of crappy rules will buy in if the.rules become much better.

Well people who advocate a more competitive ruleset, presumably must be advocating it with the assumption that such a change by GW would increase the number of competative players, otherwise they wouldn't be advocating it. If you get more competitive players in 40k, I would assume that the rest of 40k would therefore cater more to competative players and less to newcomers.

I suspect that competative players put up with the rules, and casual players enjoy them. Making the ruleset more "competative", whatever that means, won't actually increase sales from that group since they (begrudgingly) are into it anyway.

It's competitive for the love of God.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I was driven away from MTG because of the prevalence of competitive players. They may not have been the top-of-the-line regional champs or something, but every week people would spend ~$50 just to stay on top of the pack, and I didn't want to do that so I basically lost every single game until I gave up.

But that has a lot more to do with your fellow players than with the game. Any game is going to have problems if one person wants to spend very little money/effort and only play "bad" strategies while the others want to spend lots of money/effort and play whatever is most competitive at a given time. But there are a lot of casual groups where a low-budget angel tribal deck would work just fine, and people would be willing to bring their own silly deck ideas if necessary to avoid crushing you. And they play by the same core rules as the competitive players.

 Dakkamite wrote:

Infinity is for the most part concise with its rules, everything for the most part makes sense. But, there are some grey areas in it (although I am not sure if CB wrote it as it was, or if it a translation from Spanish to English) and some of the rules can use a bit of tightening up, but for the most part, it is nothing like 40k/Fantasy.

This. Infinity rules are amazing in that you can say "well, what would make logical sense here" and them BAM, someone finds an FAQ or whatever clarifying it as exactly that.

Only exception is the Retreat=End of Game rule in ITS. That rule is just horrid. Rush up and grab objectives, get massacred, game suddenly ends with your victory before the other guy can walk up and take them when in reality he should have no trouble doing so. Terrible.

Well, it kind of makes sense that that the enemy is getting the objective, uploading it, deleting the data and then escape with it before the enemy forces does....to a point....

xruslanx wrote:
I was refuting the assertion "you can't judge something before you try it" by using an exaggerated form of that rhetoric to disprove it. At no point did I compare wargames to zoophilia.

I also take issue with the fact that this issue is something that has quantifiable boundries, and therefore can be objectively argued and evaluated. I am more than happy to discuss wargaming qualitatively, but I don't see why I should be labled as closed-minded for simply disagreeing with a quantitative analysis of a complex hobby.

You're more than welcome to judge something before you try it, but when you do that other people tend to look at you and have one of two reactions:
1) You do not have enough outside knowledge to make a fair and assessed statement about this subject, please look into this more
2) While you may have never done X, you have done enough of a, b, and c to know that X is very similar to those things, thus you may have some ground to stand on.

When you can sit there and say that 40k is the best rules for cinematic gameplay around and then you say, "I've never played another set of rules" no one is going to take you seriously because you don't have enough outside knowledge. If you were to say, "Hi, I'm Rick Priestly, developer of these the various games, and while I've never played anything beyond these GW games, and Bolt Action, etc... I feel that Warmachine and Hordes isn't a fun ruleset because of reasons, even though I've never played it." then people might give you a little more credit because you are at least considered an expert in the field. With that being said people would say, "try it, you might be surprised."

And to use your burger analogy... If you only eat McDonalds burgers, and someone says, "Hey try this Five Guys burger, it's fantastic" and you say, "I don't need to try it to know that I won't like it." then your buddy is going to look at you like you're crazy. variety is the spice of life. Get out there and play something else, then you might be able to have a valid opinion on this topic instead of just spouting off what ever gak you deem necessary.

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:


Well, it kind of makes sense that that the enemy is getting the objective, uploading it, deleting the data and then escape with it before the enemy forces does....to a point....

I imagine it'd be even easier to download the data and wipe it when your not running for your life, yet we can't.

That rule makes no sense.

Regarding clear and tight rulesets being the kingdom of WAAC players, I think it probably is more to do with the kind of players who tend to play them instead of the rules themselves. I also think that because 40k is so prevalent, there are more styles of players who play the games. The more dedicated wargamers are probably the ones who look for other, and arguably better, games.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Regarding clear and tight rulesets being the kingdom of WAAC players, I think it probably is more to do with the kind of players who tend to play them instead of the rules themselves. I also think that because 40k is so prevalent, there are more styles of players who play the games. The more dedicated wargamers are probably the ones who look for other, and arguably better, games.

Maybe, but who is not to say that those type of people also exist in the Warhammer player base as well. Also, there are other gamers as well who want to try another game just for the change from the frustration that they might of had with 40K/Fantasy. Personally, I just think that it is the human factor (as I started in the original post) and the personality one has to be like that, no matter what game. Or at least my thought on it...

I honestly don't see the connection. WAAC (to me, at least) is a state of mind, not a result of unbalanced rules. Unbalanced rules will make a WAAC players life easier, yes, but they er not necessary.

the other good one is that a more balanced ruleset would be boring.

OP- they are either trolling or stupid is my guess.

How would it be boring? You could switch up your army every game and not have to worry about it being ridiculously underpowered. The variety of games would improve considerably.

If you play against Orks, what units are you going to see? Lootas, Dakkajets and Nob Bikers, very little else. If the rules were better balanced then you'd see a huge variety of armies - footsloggers, speed freaks, non-nob bikers, balanced, kan wall etc.

As it stands anyone who doesn't take Lootas, Dakkajets and Nob Bikers might as well not bother setting up.

Like a moth to a mother fething flame...

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:
I have to ask the question to a point, why?

Because they're not very bright?

Perception, perception is key

Tight well written rules mean people who can learn to be really good, and thus will win lots. Those will not as much time/interest end up shrugging and giving up

(why chess demands a certain type of player to keep up with it long term, and why a good player in a group can kill the group)

less well written rules have holes and grey areas that can be argued over and debated which may cause problems for an individual game, but long term can help keep a broader player base interested

it's the same set of issues that come up in terms of random/non-random games.

randomness is the enemy of skill, learning, planning etc BUT means that not every time you Bob the expert will he win. Bad for Bob, not so bad for his less skilled friends

 Peregrine wrote:

So you're assuming that I'm demanding some kind of "hardcore" rules (for your personal definition of "hardcore") in addition to clarity just because you want me to be making that demand? Do you know what a straw man is?

So...you're not. The only thing you want from GW is less rules mistakes? Well gee that's a rich vein of conversation right there.

That's not what GW has. The idea of "perfect imbalance" is that you deliberately manipulate power levels to create an interesting metagame over time. For example, AA units might be weak when flyers are rare, but powerful when a flyer-based army is popular. GW, on the other hand, just sucks at game balance. The 5-Riptide Tau list doesn't exist because GW did it deliberately, it exists because they're too incompetent to realize that letting Tau ally with Tau means bringing two more of the overpowered best unit in the codex.

Oh yay, you're defining my hobby for me again, cheers. No.

Grey Knights stomped face in 5th, then got gradually tailed back. Necrons were OP when they were released, but thanks to new releases are not. Flyers were obscene at the start of 6th, but thanks to more AA are not. Blood Angels were scary and are now week, and my own beloved IG are much diminished, save for the Vendetta.

You may not like this constant shift in power, but it exists.

And you believe this because you've never played a balanced game. If you had you'd realize that it's unbalanced games that are stale and boring because all you have to do to win is identify the most overpowered balance mistakes (or just ask a forum) and then take them. The game is reduced to the same few overpowered choices and the theoretical diversity of having lots of options is thrown away.

That's all you need to do to win? My friends and I have never done that...almost as if 40k is a casual game.

You do realize that people play 40k for reasons besides how much they love the rules, right? And that many of GW's customers never even play the game?

Yes but saying that the 40k ruleset is offputting to newcomers, when it is by far and away the largest gateway to newcomers, is flat-out wrong. You are wrong, perigrine.

Here's a better idea: learn from MTG and market to everyone. Casual players are happy with MTG, and competitive players are happy with MTG. Everyone gets what they want. Only with GW games do you have the absurd assumption that only one player group can be happy at a time.

You know what? 40k isn't magic the gathering, I suggest you go find a M:TG forum since you clearly adore it so much.

You keep repeating the matra that 40k would have nothing to lose by focussing on competative players - something which has apparently escaped every single games workshop rule designer for the past twenty years. Why do you think that is? What is it that you, peregrine, have seen, that they have not?

Nice appeal to a false authority in that last para there xruslanx. Bravo.

xruslanx wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

So you're assuming that I'm demanding some kind of "hardcore" rules (for your personal definition of "hardcore") in addition to clarity just because you want me to be making that demand? Do you know what a straw man is?

So...you're not. The only thing you want from GW is less rules mistakes? Well gee that's a rich vein of conversation right there.

Yup, that's what most of us are asking. For GW's rules to be clearer. We don't want them to be more "hardcore", whatever that'd involve.

Grey Knights stomped face in 5th, then got gradually tailed back. Necrons were OP when they were released, but thanks to new releases are not. Flyers were obscene at the start of 6th, but thanks to more AA are not. Blood Angels were scary and are now week, and my own beloved IG are much diminished, save for the Vendetta.

You may not like this constant shift in power, but it exists.

Exactly, the external balance is terrible. At each stage, there's usually an easy win army (currently Tau it seems), and for each army there's really only a couple of combinations that are actually any good. I've never heard of anyone using Gretchins, Conscripts or Rough Riders, or any number of other units in games. For instance, I was playing against a fairly shooting Tau list with an IG list I'd optimized for that and was tabled by turn 2; and I honestly don't think there's any list or strategy I could use to do much better even if I spammed Leman Russ squadrons and lascannon teams.

You keep repeating the matra that 40k would have nothing to lose by focussing on competative players - something which has apparently escaped every single games workshop rule designer for the past twenty years. Why do you think that is? What is it that you, peregrine, have seen, that they have not?

They don't care; the rules are there to support model sales (they even say as much in shareholder reports). The people responsible for the innovations in the gaming are all innovating elsewhere (Bolt Action is currently what 40K should have been, Kings Of War is currently what WHF should have been).

They are, and I paraphrase "in the business of selling toy soldiers to kids", and spout this nonsense about being "cinemetic" and "narrative" to get around the fact that they don't care that the rules are crap. They are selling this idea that they could make the rules better, but they'd ruin the feel, and the best solution is to 4+ it, and people are buying it. Admittedly it's usually people who've never tried other games to have some appreciate of what they could be like.



I get that you like GW games, and don't mind the issues other members are complaining about, and feel that you won't enjoy other games, but that really doesn't give you any basis for claiming that GW has the best rules. But you should give X-Wing a go and see what you can do with a 20 page rule booklet.

xruslanx wrote:


You keep repeating the matra that 40k would have nothing to lose by focussing on competative players - something which has apparently escaped every single games workshop rule designer for the past twenty years. Why do you think that is? What is it that you, peregrine, have seen, that they have not?

They see a cost investment they're not willing to make.

Then they market that as a feature.

xruslanx wrote:
Grey Knights stomped face in 5th, then got gradually tailed back. Necrons were OP when they were released, but thanks to new releases are not. Flyers were obscene at the start of 6th, but thanks to more AA are not. Blood Angels were scary and are now week, and my own beloved IG are much diminished, save for the Vendetta.

You may not like this constant shift in power, but it exists.

A balanced ruleset stops a constant shift in power of this magnitude. Grey Knights stomped face in 5th edition because they could deny the basic objectives of the game (kill points) by offering an extremely resilient troop choice that could also reliably take and hold objectives. Blackmoor, a renowned US tournament player, wrote an entire article in 5th edition as to why Grey Knights were fantastic in the tournament scene, but guess what it was always 1 of 2 different lists. It was either Draigowing, or it was Coteaz with Death Cult Assassins. That's pretty much it. Sure they had other things that were decent on the table, but they all had their own major flaw and glaring weakness. Necrons were OP at the dawn of 6th edition because they could 1) Pack flyers into their lists that acted as transports that didn't take their unit with them when they died and 2) could easily and reliably glance vehicles to death again. Sure we've got more AA, but AA is useless against a Riptide list, etc... If the game was truly balanced you'd see an even split of army composition at tournaments (because people would be able to do well with any army), and you'd see certain players topping the tournaments instead of lists (because true player skill starts to shine). As it was said in the last thread on this subject, there was a reason why it was called the Tau'VA open (instead of NoVA Open), because everyone saw that there was a clear winner in terms of army, codex, and list choice. That's not good balance.

That's all you need to do to win? My friends and I have never done that...almost as if 40k is a casual game.

Being a casual game doesn't mean that it's rules have to be ambiguous and unclear. It's been stated over and over that clear rules designed for competition play trickle down to the casual players. If the rules work at the level where you're most likely to see players doing everything in their power to win (outside of cheating and being a dick) then those rules are beneficial to players at the casual level who just want to have fun and no argue rules or 4+ it. A solid and clear ruleset means that if I travel to England and bring my MAN DOLLIES with me to play, I can go into a store throw down some models and I don't have to be like, "Well this is how we play it here in Ohio, how do they do things here?" We just set down our models and start playing without interrupting the game to make rules decisions, because the rules decisions have been laid out in the book already.

Yes but saying that the 40k ruleset is offputting to newcomers, when it is by far and away the largest gateway to newcomers, is flat-out wrong. You are wrong, perigrine.

The game is VERY off-putting to newcomers I've been teaching people how to play games for a few years now, and the only games that are difficult to teach to people (in my experience) is Magic the Gathering and GW's main two lines. The reason why Magic is tough to teach is because it's tough to get your mind around how the stack works, deck building is a little confusing, and it takes some time to learn the combos of a deck, but once you learn those things it becomes second nature to play. The game hasn't made giant strides in how it's played in the 20 years it's been around, but that's because it has clear rules that are easy to understand. On the other hand, 40k (and Fantasy) are difficult to teach because you have unbalanced starter sets which means that someone gets the shaft on the armies and losing all the time when you're learning is the #1 way to lose a player, and because the mini rulebook scenario puts out a very basic way to play the game, which gets turned upside down when you start to actually play the game how it's meant to be played. The rules don't go over army building (which is really hard to explain to someone when they don't even have a codex yet), and the game is needlessly complex for the sake of "narrative gameplay"

You keep repeating the mantra that 40k would have nothing to lose by focusing on competitive players - something which has apparently escaped every single games workshop rule designer for the past twenty years. Why do you think that is? What is it that you, peregrine, have seen, that they have not?

If I recall correctly there was a major shift towards the 'competitive 40k scene' starting in 4th edition, and it only moved towards that with 5th edition with Alessio Cavatore having a larger role in the design of the game. If you look at the 3 lead designers for 4th and 5th edition 40k, we have Rick Priestly, Andy Chambers, and Alessio Cavatore. Guess who they don't work with anymore? Games Workshop. All three of these men have moved on to other projects, with Rick being a co-owner of Warlord Games which make games that are arguably better than GW. These men left, so maybe they realized that there was something to be gained, not by focusing on competitive players, but by focusing on clear and concise rules. Compare that to the current 3 designers of 6th edition, Mat Ward, Jeremy Vetock (author of Tau 6th ed), and Adam Troke (author of Eldar 6th ed). The three of them may not be terrible designers, but they've not been at it as long as the three designers of 4th and 5th edition, maybe 7th edition 40k will be the best one yet, able to blend competitive and casual gameplay, but atm no they've done a crap job at clearing up the waters and making these rules easy to learn and difficult to abuse.

A splendid, articulate and well reasoned post Alfindrate, have one of my very rare Exalts!

Shame it will be a complete waste of your time.

 Alfndrate wrote:

Yes but saying that the 40k ruleset is offputting to newcomers, when it is by far and away the largest gateway to newcomers, is flat-out wrong. You are wrong, perigrine.

The game is VERY off-putting to newcomers I've been teaching people how to play games for a few years now, and the only games that are difficult to teach to people (in my experience) is Magic the Gathering and GW's main two lines. The reason why Magic is tough to teach is because it's tough to get your mind around how the stack works, deck building is a little confusing, and it takes some time to learn the combos of a deck, but once you learn those things it becomes second nature to play. The game hasn't made giant strides in how it's played in the 20 years it's been around, but that's because it has clear rules that are easy to understand. On the other hand, 40k (and Fantasy) are difficult to teach because you have unbalanced starter sets which means that someone gets the shaft on the armies and losing all the time when you're learning is the #1 way to lose a player, and because the mini rulebook scenario puts out a very basic way to play the game, which gets turned upside down when you start to actually play the game how it's meant to be played. The rules don't go over army building (which is really hard to explain to someone when they don't even have a codex yet), and the game is needlessly complex for the sake of "narrative gameplay".

Bingo.

When I worked for GW we were taught to dumb the game down for demo games and basically make up the rules to get kids interested. Upon actually seeing how the game works most kids don't have the attention span or the interest. Its partially why I left the company, it was dishonest work.