1 Game in, WHFB > 40k

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**UlrikDecado**

Mahtamori wrote:
I'm wearing a reinforced flakk-coat. It's a pretty good armour all things considered and provides a 4+ armour save. I'm standing next to a waist-high wall that goes up to my abdomen and is made of plasteel, effectively a 4+ cover save that's more robust in structure than a flakk-coat. The wall is also part of a ruin which gives me a 5+ area save. ...Or for that matter, I am standing in a thriving plantation that provides 6+ cover. How does barley provide any protection against a D-Cannon if I'm actually hit by it?

Sorry, I had to...too strong reminiscence

But to the topic. After one battle I wouldnt make assumptions. I played WHFB and it has its own quirks and hiccups. Saying "The armies are more balanced and the game requires more thought on tactics than the luck of mass rolling" is simply wrong and funny according to fact you say you've played one game. Funny thing is that I chose WH40K also because in WHFB I had feeling the battles are too predictable and even with massive use of brain its rather matter of terrain than anything else (and now I am oversimplifying).

So...only one thing in which I dare to say one game is better than other is fluff. In WHFB its absence or sterility was sometimes really, really disappointing. WH40K is much much better on fluff front. Game wise its rather about personal preference of style in matter of movement, role of LoS etc.

**Wayniac**

Having looked at both (and played both many many years ago) the main thing stopping me from looking at WHFB is A) 95% of people at my FLGS play 40k only and B) The prices seem even crazier. I've read that you need 30 on average of a standard infantry unit, so you're looking at $100 or more for a single unit. No thanks.

I'm likely going to Kings of War for my regimented combat (the fact I like Mantic's figures notwithstanding).

**StormKing**

WayneTheGame wrote:
Having looked at both (and played both many many years ago) the main thing stopping me from looking at WHFB is A) 95% of people at my FLGS play 40k only and B) The prices seem even crazier. I've read that you need 30 on average of a standard infantry unit, so you're looking at $100 or more for a single unit. No thanks.

I'm likely going to Kings of War for my regimented combat (the fact I like Mantic's figures notwithstanding).

Well that is only partly true about the prices. It all depends on the army and the unit types, if you play Vampire counts for examples you can spend a BUNCH of money on GW models or you can buy Kings of War undead models for like 50% of the price.

I think price of 40k is equally as expensive because you have to buy tanks, big units etc so I think the prices even out in my experience anyways.

**TedNugent**

Mahtamori wrote:

TedNugent, I'm wearing a reinforced flakk-coat. It's a pretty good armour all things considered and provides a 4+ armour save. I'm standing next to a waist-high wall that goes up to my abdomen and is made of plasteel, effectively a 4+ cover save that's more robust in structure than a flakk-coat. The wall is also part of a ruin which gives me a 5+ area save. You're using a lasgun. It's got no ability to penetrate my armour, and will only wound me if you hit me in an area that's exposed. Luckily, you're not exactly using a single-shot but firing in burst mode, significantly increasing the surface area each salvo will hit. I can stand out in the open, exposing the less-protected legs where the armour is made of less sturdy stuff to allow for movement. Or I can choose to stand behind the wall, where I will in fact be able to brace myself against it, exposing pretty much only my helmeted head, shoulders and arms when shooting.

In 40k, it doesn't matter where I stand. Your ability to wound me is the same since I can only ever use the wall or my armour to mitigate damage dealt to me.

In any other major wargame you will be significantly less likely to wound me if I stand behind the wall.

Your argument only holds water if the weapon used is capable of defeating the armour I am wearing. However, the system used in nearly all major wargames actually provides that suspense of disbelief as well since those weapons will actually have a harder time hitting me. Again, in the example I used and taking the S10 AP4 cannon shot. It doesn't ignore cover, but it does ignore my armour, yet an explosion exactly the same as the one that reduced the building I am standing in to a ruin now suddenly has a 33% chance of not reducing my internal organs to unusable goo because I am standing on it?

Yeah, your cover save and armour save have equal probability of success. You can actually choose which one you want to roll, but they're both 4+ so it makes no diff. The game is based on probabilities, so it's randomized.

If it were a simulation, we could talk about placing your strikes so that they land on less well-armored areas and so forth. Instead we use a dice rolling system to turn all of that into probabilities that are based on the quality of the armor.

Mahtamori wrote:

Or for that matter, I am standing in a thriving plantation that provides 6+ cover. How does barley provide any protection against a D-Cannon if I'm actually hit by it?

Well if we're trying to simplify things, we just roll concealment into the same familiar saves system as the rest of cover. Seems kind of excessive to have to hit modifiers AND cover saves AND armor saves, don't you think? If we're really trying to simplify this and reduce the number of modifiers and/or saves to a reasonable minimum to allow for a playable game system, one saving throw post-wound seems like a straightforward way to do it.

Once you start introducing angle of attack, cover vs concealment, shot placement and so forth you are adding complication that is already abstracted by the dice roll in the saving throw.

**Steelmage99**

To the OP;

I am happy for you that you have found a game that you enjoy.

I am into 40K because of the back-story.

**monders**

"Long range shots and cover make it harder to HIT the enemy"

Pre-measuring makes hitting the enemy super easy, as my Lizardmen can attest to after being cut down in no time by a dwarf canon line...

**EVIL INC**

I actually started playing fantasy before 40k. It was fun but lacked in strategy in tactics that 40k had more of. So I graduated to 40k. Dont get me wrong, geometry is ok, but it is just too limiting.

**Plumbumbarum**

Ailaros wrote:
but then I'd have to run around with blocks of poorer-quality miniatures with saltine levels of fluff...

Have you seen Vampire Counts undead? New Skaven? Necrosphinx? Karl Franz? Poorer quality, not really.

Skeletons and Grave Guard send shivers down my spine tbh, I'm not a fantasy guy I hate majority of it bar Tolkien, Moorcock and Warhammer but the minis got me anyway.

dementedwombat wrote:
I mean you could talk about the bat-poo insane magic phase or the complete and utter lack of terrain actually being a thing that people actually want to see on the battlefield.

Medieval battles were ussualy fought on plain fields with maybe a hill or sth and WHFB is bonkers medieval times after all. I like 40k with lots of terrain and
WHFB with little.

**Ailaros**

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Ailaros wrote:
but then I'd have to run around with blocks of poorer-quality miniatures with saltine levels of fluff...

Have you seen Vampire Counts undead? New Skaven? Necrosphinx? Karl Franz? Poorer quality, not really.

As mentioned, some of their minis, specifically the new stuff, is decent and a few pieces are properly good. But those are your lords and rare units which are, by definition, rare.

Most of your army is going to be made up of blocks of units that look like...

Which are giant piles of low detail, woeful proportion, incorrectly mellowed greenstuffed, stray sculpting tool marked, piles of... less good.

And that's the problem with WHFB. For every one very nice model you put down on the table, you put down 5 decent ones and 40 crummy ones. 40k minis are all just newer and so are nicer. Those few stinkers they have around also tend to be peripheral units you're probably not going to include, rather than 50% of your army.

**ansacs**

Keep in mind you can now use these as core;

and some of the newer core sculpts look good if done well.

Funny enough you really can't say 40K models are better than WHFB models for at least one range...daemons of chaos.

**dementedwombat**

Ailaros wrote:

Is it a bad thing that the first thing that jumped in my head was "darn it, drill out that horn! It looks horrible." I mean if 40k people are crazy enough to drill their gun barrels...I'm sure someone out there has done it.

**moonpie**

Drilling out horns for sure happens.

The apples and oranges comment for sure applies. Different game aside from the tables used. The cover making it harder to hit and stronger weapons lowering armor save thing used to exist. Terminators used to have a 2+ save you rolled on 2D6.

The model ranges in Fantasy are similar to 40k in that the newer models are fantastic and some of the old models show their age. GW really struck gold in their fluff for 40k, but Fantasy still has some cool stuff. The neatest thing to me(biased Empire collector) is that the humans aren't neccesarily medieval. The Brettonians are, but the Empire has the Holy Roman Empire era tech and look. That you just never see anywhere else and it is very love it or hate it.

**StormKing**

Ailaros you picked some of the worst Skaven models and the oldest that people don't use, the new kits that make up the majority of peoples armies are great. Look at these....you can't say these don't look good.....Maybe it is just a matter of opinion though like anything

I still think that a painted Fantasy army (no matter the models) looks much more epic than a fully painted 40k army just an opinion though.