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I haven't read through all this, I'll save it for a time I want a giggle but from the other posts I have read on here and various other places, the overall hate seems to be aimed at the 40k ruleset/ability to make cheese lists and the price an the price is the only thing that anyone could ever effect if they had the chance too.
We all have ideas and suggestions to make the rule set and army books more balanced but no matter the rules, no matter how hard you try to balance it all, it will always end up the same way, always. People play to win and those people who pay Taudar and the rest will always find a way to create those kinds of lists and ways to abuse the rules.

I used to demo various games for companies/stores at cons and gatherings and as a result, got quite into the competitive side of those games that had them. Yugioh, Pokemon, Bakugan and a whole host of others throughout the years I was doing that job. But no matter which game it was, no matter how much each game was controlled with various restricted or banned lists, errata, faqs ect there was always a way to exploit the rules and ALWAYS someone who would exploit them to their fullest.

This is just the nature of ourselves as human beings. As for other systems out there that seem relatively balanced, give it time. Let them get steam and more and more material released for them. IF they get as big a 40k and GW, then i guarantee, that they will have flaws in the rules too.

So I agree with the OP 100% (Exalted, too) if 40k is so horrendous, move on to another system and play that until it becomes unbalanced and then move on again. At least that way, you'll have loads of awesome models painted and several game systems ready to play

Deadnight wrote:
But yes jasper, I will hold you to this meeting - in dc or here in Scotland. it'll be good!

Lets hope it does, hopefully first in your region, which by all accounts is quite more lovely than the swamp near which I was born!

Price wrote:
I haven't read through all this, I'll save it for a time I want a giggle but from the other posts I have read on here and various other places, the overall hate seems to be aimed at the 40k ruleset/ability to make cheese lists and the price an the price is the only thing that anyone could ever effect if they had the chance too.
We all have ideas and suggestions to make the rule set and army books more balanced but no matter the rules, no matter how hard you try to balance it all, it will always end up the same way, always. People play to win and those people who pay Taudar and the rest will always find a way to create those kinds of lists and ways to abuse the rules.

I used to demo various games for companies/stores at cons and gatherings and as a result, got quite into the competitive side of those games that had them. Yugioh, Pokemon, Bakugan and a whole host of others throughout the years I was doing that job. But no matter which game it was, no matter how much each game was controlled with various restricted or banned lists, errata, faqs ect there was always a way to exploit the rules and ALWAYS someone who would exploit them to their fullest.

This is just the nature of ourselves as human beings. As for other systems out there that seem relatively balanced, give it time. Let them get steam and more and more material released for them. IF they get as big a 40k and GW, then i guarantee, that they will have flaws in the rules too.

So I agree with the OP 100% (Exalted, too) if 40k is so horrendous, move on to another system and play that until it becomes unbalanced and then move on again. At least that way, you'll have loads of awesome models painted and several game systems ready to play

But I am here for that I like 40k, but I don't enjoy it.
Realy for me,40k fails since
They have no internal ballence to the codex, to the point both the army I play seem to have trap units that are worthless on the battlefield.

External ballence also with some cod exes needing updates and not getting them even why new things come out.

And balance in design, it seems some army's and by extension customers get more to play with and put into there games.
This also comes into the fact that some army's just get way more put into there design than others .

Weather these are true or not the perception is spreading to more players I have talked to, and online seems to be spreading greatly.

About other games getting worse for there ballence, I would say that's just nothing.
I would say the variables in my games of warmachine are far greater than anything in the games of 40k I have play. I defenatly play more separate units than any of my 40k army's.
And yet I find my games of that far more engaging, and quicker with less difficulty even at 100 to 300 points.

In the end despite my grumpiness at times, I am not leaving 40k without kicking and screaming, I am being pushed out. Told as a custermer I am not wanted and being neglected on allmost every way they could.

Considering the prices they charge they need to step it up, they certainly can't raise there price much here anymore.

In the end there is no hate, just disappointment.

I've been playing this game since 1989, and the comments from both sides have been the same flavor in all of that time. For the past 25 years I've been into this game, some people have been saying GW is going to shut down next week because they've alienated everyone, others are saying the company is God's gift to Earth.
Will it shut down some day? Possibly, but from the things I've seen on this or other forums, it's not because any of the doomsayers have any shrewd business sense, but more because someone happened to pick the right time to say it.
There are plenty of things that GW has done that I don't like that cost them sales from me, Finecast being a notable example. I like my miniatures to have more durability than reinforced whipped cream, so didn't making any notable purchaces in that direction, prefering instead to go to Ebay, proxy, or convert what I needed.
The final fact of the matter for me anyway, is that overall I enjoy the game and have plenty of friends that do, so we keep buying the stuff and playing it, while bringing new players in.

Relapse wrote:
I've been playing this game since 1989, and the comments from both sides have been the same flavor in all of that time. For the past 25 years I've been into this game, some people have been saying GW is going to shut down next week because they've alienated everyone, others are saying the company is God's gift to Earth.
Will it shut down some day? Possibly, but from the things I've seen on this or other forums, it's not because any of the doomsayers have any shrewd business sense, but more because someone happened to pick the right time to say it.
There are plenty of things that GW has done that I don't like that cost them sales from me, Finecast being a notable example. I like my miniatures to have more durability than reinforced whipped cream, so didn't making any notable purchaces in that direction, prefering instead to go to Ebay, proxy, or convert what I needed.
The final fact of the matter for me anyway, is that overall I enjoy the game and have plenty of friends that do, so we keep buying the stuff and playing it, while bringing new players in.

As an intelligent consumer, I know that rules come and go, but Finecast investments last a long time....and it's gak material to try and do anything with besides prime, paint, and hope it doesnt get crushed against a metal atmy or any kind of heavy plastic terrain, Step on it? Good luck....another 25 bucks.

I wouldn't advise stepping on plastic models for the same reason jasper76...

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I wouldn't advise stepping on plastic models for the same reason jasper76...

Proof is in da puddin. Any time I've stepped on a plastic model, I've been able to recoup my foolish loss with superglue. Finecast is a different animal entirely. No room for party fouls, and in my experience 40k is best a party game, hence plastic beats finecast.

I've been collecting for most my life and am struggling to remember stepping on any of my models. When I was, ummm, like 9 years old, my older sister accidentally stepped on one of my model aircraft, that's about it, lol.

 jasper76 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I wouldn't advise stepping on plastic models for the same reason jasper76...

Proof is in da puddin. Any time I've stepped on a plastic model, I've been able to recoup my foolish loss with superglue. Finecast is a different animal entirely. No room for party fouls, and in my experience 40k is best a party game, hence plastic beats finecast.

I'd expect most plastic models to end up being horrible marred if stepped on, but okay I guess.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've been collecting for most my life and am struggling to remember stepping on any of my models. When I was, ummm, like 9 years old, my older sister accidentally stepped on one of my model aircraft, that's about it, lol.

That's because you're all seeing and couldn't possibly step accidently on a miniature.

Relapse wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've been collecting for most my life and am struggling to remember stepping on any of my models. When I was, ummm, like 9 years old, my older sister accidentally stepped on one of my model aircraft, that's about it, lol.

That's because you're all seeing and couldn't possibly step accidently on a miniature.

LOL, indeed.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've been collecting for most my life and am struggling to remember stepping on any of my models. When I was, ummm, like 9 years old, my older sister accidentally stepped on one of my model aircraft, that's about it, lol.

Sleep less, drink more, and you will know 100% while I'm talking about.

hobojebus wrote:
40k isn't fast to play,you random roll mission, you random roll deployment, you can spend 30 minutes on terrain setup depending on how high the rolls are, then you random roll your traits, then roll your powers, then set up your army and after 45-60 minutes you might start the game.

Then if your a horde player you can spend 20 minutes moving models which you'll have to random roll difficult terrain for.

Shooting makes no sense you should do saves after hits not wounds, then anything that gets through you roll to wound.

I played a game at 2k on Wednesday and it took a good three hours with both players being vets well acquainted with the rules, and it gets boring.

I play x-wing as well and that's a fast game with clear rules that you can play in under an hour.

40k is becoming too complex for what it is.

I don't understand why 40K being a slow game is a negative.

40K & X-Wing are totally differect in their scale. I love 40K because it is a big game that takes all night. I play X-wing too, I play that when I don't want to spend all night on one game. If both games played ther same I wouldn't play both.

Slow food, if you've heard of it, is carefully made recipes that take a long time to source and make, and the reward is a superior meal at the end.

The question is whether 40K is a superior game because it's slower than similar tactical skirmish wargames.

For example, the procedure to resolve shooting damage is very long because you have to throw up to six dice for every single shot. Other games resolve shooting much more quickly.

Is there a particular advantage of the 40K mechanism?

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Is there a particular advantage of the 40K mechanism?

The good healthy fun of rolling dice from buckets.

Being slow is only fun if it comes from making careful tactical decisions that end up paying off in the long run.

Being slow because of poorly thought out movement rules, awkward shooting and the fact GW are forcing you into using more and more models because they lower points so you need to buy more isn't fun for me.

40K is not well designed for the scale of games they are now pushing, its designed for skirmishes and that shows when you try to scale it up.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For example, the procedure to resolve shooting damage is very long because you have to throw up to six dice for every single shot. Other games resolve shooting much more quickly.

Well, I need to throw 6 dies for every ones of my sluggers in Warmachine if they shoot at a warjack/warbeast, but the big difference is that I need to throw first one dice (to get the number of shots), then two dices (do I hit ?) then two other dices (how much damage did I do), then another die (in which position did I do the damage). And I have almost no way to regroup this. For each model of my unit, I must roll all those dices separately. Really, playing sluggers or burrowers, it takes way longer to shoot (or to charge for the burrowers) than for any of my Sisters of Battle unit.

This thread is about 40K, not Warmachine.

In Stars N Bars ACW rules, the shooting of an entire unit is resolved with a single roll of D100.

 jasper76 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Is there a particular advantage of the 40K mechanism?

The good healthy fun of rolling dice from buckets.

Yes, that is a point. I mean is there a procedural or mechanical advantage?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For example, the procedure to resolve shooting damage is very long because you have to throw up to six dice for every single shot. Other games resolve shooting much more quickly.

Well, I need to throw 6 dies for every ones of my sluggers in Warmachine if they shoot at a warjack/warbeast, but the big difference is that I need to throw first one dice (to get the number of shots), then two dices (do I hit ?) then two other dices (how much damage did I do), then another die (in which position did I do the damage). And I have almost no way to regroup this. For each model of my unit, I must roll all those dices separately. Really, playing sluggers or burrowers, it takes way longer to shoot (or to charge for the burrowers) than for any of my Sisters of Battle unit.

That's probably the worst case scenario though. I never have to deal with that for my riflemen. As a general rule, warmachine is a two-roll system, like most games (infinity, fow, dnd etc) - roll to hit, roll to cause damage. (And to speed yourself up, roll a different coloured damage location dice along with the damage dice- it helps in timed steamrollers!). Occasionally, you'll have tough rolls.

40k is generally 3 to 4. Roll to hit, roll to wound, roll armour saves, and often, roll for fnp. Amusingly, Three of those dice rolls 'ask the same question' - did what hit my dude kill him? For that reason, I see 40k dice rolling as being needlessly excessive.

To hit , To wound , redirect , save , FnP all on a model to model basis.

I can take 10 sets of different colored dice and roll to hit and then to damage to speed things up . With w40k it is not that easy , because the front model tanks all hits.

hobojebus wrote:
Being slow is only fun if it comes from making careful tactical decisions that end up paying off in the long run.

Not true. Not once have I ever considered 40K a heavy tactical game. I find it a great way to spend an evening with friends pushing miniatures around the table rolling buckets of dice.

There are other much better tactical games available. I'm not interested in them myself. 40K is not for people who want a heavy tactical game and I see no reason why it should change.

and the fact GW are forcing you into using more and more models because they lower points so you need to buy more isn't fun for me.

GW are not forcing anyone to buy anything.
But, more models the better. I play 40K because it's a game that allows me to use lots of models. When I want to play with fewer models I play one of the many skirmish games out there. I play lot more games of Star Wars minis and Heroclix than 40K. But I much prefer 40K with my Ork green tide.

I compared with Warmachine because :

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The question is whether 40K is a superior game because it's slower than similar tactical skirmish wargames.

For example, the procedure to resolve shooting damage is very long because you have to throw up to six dice for every single shot. Other games resolve shooting much more quickly.

Is there a particular advantage of the 40K mechanism?

Warmachine is a similar tactical skirmish wargame. And one of the leaders after 40k and WHFB.

Deadnight wrote:
As a general rule, warmachine is a two-roll system, like most games (infinity, fow, dnd etc) - roll to hit, roll to cause damage. (And to speed yourself up, roll a different coloured damage location dice along with the damage dice- it helps in timed steamrollers!). Occasionally, you'll have tough rolls.

40k is generally 3 to 4. Roll to hit, roll to wound, roll armour saves, and often, roll for fnp.

Tough is about as usual as FNP. So, yeah, you generally have one less roll to do in Warmachine, because no armor save. On the other hand, because you always roll two dice at once, even if all your models are shooting at the same model, you will probably need to do them each separately. And in the general case, you want to do them separately, because you want to see what your first shot did before deciding the target for the second one. Hence, it takes a hell lot more time with the warmachine system. I could probably make two, or three units of 5 sisters with two special weapons shoot during the time it takes to make one 5-troll unit of sluggers shoot. Not to mention it is way easier to know what you need to roll to succed with the Sisters than with the Sluggers, due to all the various DEF and ARM modifiers and the bigger numerical scale to begin with.

 Ugavine wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Being slow is only fun if it comes from making careful tactical decisions that end up paying off in the long run.

Not true. Not once have I ever considered 40K a heavy tactical game. I find it a great way to spend an evening with friends pushing miniatures around the table rolling buckets of dice.

There are other much better tactical games available. I'm not interested in them myself. 40K is not for people who want a heavy tactical game and I see no reason why it should change.

and the fact GW are forcing you into using more and more models because they lower points so you need to buy more isn't fun for me.

GW are not forcing anyone to buy anything.
But, more models the better. I play 40K because it's a game that allows me to use lots of models. When I want to play with fewer models I play one of the many skirmish games out there. I play lot more games of Star Wars minis and Heroclix than 40K. But I much prefer 40K with my Ork green tide.

Of course 40k isnt a heavily tactical game that was my whole point, the fact it takes 3-4 hours to play a 2k game is why its so bleeding boring.

Its awkward and not designed for big games.

In 2nd and 3rd ed you'd have maybe 25 guys on the board, in 6th you have upwards of 80 per side and the only reason for that is they want to force you to buy more, you have no choice but to buy them if you want to field a 1k or 2k force.

warhammer 40k is not designed for large battles its designed to be a skirmish game and as they change it to include more and more models the serious flaws in the design are more blatant.

Rolling 48 dice of Devourer shots was fun at first, but the novelty wore off pretty fast.

Part of the issue I had with the 6th edition rules is not specifically that there is a lot of mucking around in them. The last edition I had played was 2nd edition, so an elevated level of mucking around seemed natural. The problem was it didn't feel like the game provided a good payoff for the complexity and effort.

Basically, if I have to screw around a lot with complex rules I'd like to have a high level of simulational fidelity.

Also, I would love if we could have a moratorium on the word "hate." It's a severe mischaracterisation of people's actions/words that actively prevents you from understanding them. If someone legitimately hates 40k they probably aren't on here posting about its flaws, they are off doing something else that they find enjoyable. The reason people post about its flaws is because they still care. It is the exact opposite of "hate."

My area has been doing mostly 500 point games now with 1HQ and 1Troop as the mandatory choices. It was supposed to stop the whole spamming wave serpents and Riptide ordeal, but now we've been having people bringing Iron Hand Chapter Masters on bikes with the EW shield.

They also recently had a 6 round 500 point tournament where they decided the day before to make every game purge the alien with no terrain in the deployment zone and 6 large LOS blocking terrain pieces scattered in the middle.

I tried to bring a decent TAC list to the game and got my rear handed to me. Bringing 7 kill points when everyone else had 3 made things rather difficult. It did teach me something though. This was all in response to the current meta. The people in my area are basically confused and don't know what to allow and what they want to play, so they're basically house ruling and trying to work out a system to have fun games with the rules they have.

The problem to house rulings is the same in the proposed rules sections. Most people have absolutely no clue as to how to make something balanced. Yes no terrain to hide in and massive LOS blocking terrain lets you hide your bike chapter masters. But it also screws over anyone that was trying to stay at range and lob shells. You may not like shooting units, but literally screwing them over for the sake of CC units isn't the right way to go. For the most part we realize this. We don't like making house rules because it feels like we are taking too much power over the rules and don't know what way to go with it.

I mean we've already given up on the terrain placement, the mysterious objectives, the way primary and secondary objectives count, and on warlord traits. These are the most basic parts of setting up the game and it was also the easiest problems to spot and fix.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
...
...
...

Also, I would love if we could have a moratorium on the word "hate." It's a severe mischaracterisation of people's actions/words that actively prevents you from understanding them. If someone legitimately hates 40k they probably aren't on here posting about its flaws, they are off doing something else that they find enjoyable. The reason people post about its flaws is because they still care. It is the exact opposite of "hate."

Well said!

Back to the topic, I take the point about Warmachine also having lots of dice rolls. That doesn't mean it is a "good" mechanism, though. To me, it's a way to vary the percentage range of results possible with six sided dice. The same range of results probably could be achieved faster with a more sophisticated percentage dice based technique.

The main plus point -- Apart from enjoyment of buckets of dice -- is that it gives the non-moving player something to do.

Presumably it is easier to understand and use, as you don't have to make any calculations, which must be good for younger players whose mental arithmetic is not fully developed.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Back to the topic, I take the point about Warmachine also having lots of dice rolls. That doesn't mean it is a "good" mechanism, though. To me, it's a way to vary the percentage range of results possible with six sided dice. The same range of results probably could be achieved faster with a more sophisticated percentage dice based technique.

The main plus point -- Apart from enjoyment of buckets of dice -- is that it gives the non-moving player something to do.

Presumably it is easier to understand and use, as you don't have to make any calculations, which must be good for younger players whose mental arithmetic is not fully developed.

That is one thing that I think that GW's rolling system does well, it's all simple "target number or better" rolls which make it easy to figure out what you need to roll quickly and without making players stop and add/subtract modifiers (like you do in say, WFB).

Though I think the melee combat chart could get a reworking to work like the ranged one so that a WS10 model smacking a WS1 model hits on a 2+ with a 2+ re-roll, and getting progressively less advantages as the chart moves towards matching WS (or if you're a lower WS, having the opposing WS pass you). I think the worst WS roll should cap at a 6+ though as there really isn't a reason to make WS1 models need to roll two consecutive 6s to hit against a WS10 model (even if it's fluffy I'm sure people would flip tables if it went that far in reverse).

Actually that might be a fun idea to play with at some point. I might try to make a proposed rules thing out of it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back to the topic, I take the point about Warmachine also having lots of dice rolls. That doesn't mean it is a "good" mechanism, though.

Well, it is also very different. I was only addressing how long it took to have a whole unit shoot in both systems, but 40k allows a big unit to have all models shoot almost at the same time, therefore you are launching big bucket of games, while Warmachine does not allow that, you need to roll each shoot separately. Actually Warmachine version is “better” tactically, make a bit more sense, and require less dices (you will mostly roll between two and three dices at the same time, with a maximum of four, while it is easy to have to roll 40 dices at 40k) but at the expense of taking way longer.

Really, I think the great advantage of Warmachine is that it allows for a greater variation and therefore a finer tuning of difficulty, while the advantage of 40k is that it allows to do a whole unit in one go.

I actually saw a system that used as few dice throws as possible in Dystopian Wars. If I remember right, you measure distance and angle and then roll to hit. 6's gave you extra dice to roll and then you compare how many hits you got to combined with weapon strength and the target's armor. The player then got to make a save or two if they had shields in place.

And in all honesty that actually made it harder for me to get involved in the game. Pretty much every weapon seemed to look amazingly similar at that point. It was a good game, with amazing models and all, but the combat just wasn't at the scale I liked.

What bothers me with combat for 40K isn't the number of dice rolling, but the model placement. Wounds from the front I'm fine with, but I can't stand the idea of true line of sight. Do you know how many times I had to lean down just to see if I could hit a model or not. It's freaking stupid. It makes the movement phase so much longer because you have to try and get models exactly right to see some targets. It makes it possible to hide a FMC completely with a tiny building or wall. Not to mention that I recently learned that you can hide a model in a ruined building out of LOS but charge straight through the walls you couldn't shoot through before hand. That has to be a new personal favorite.

TLoS came out of 5th edition and was created because players where basically doing just that. I'd much rather we back off and abstract it a little (draw a line from the unit to it's target, models that can't be targeted without drawing a line through terrain or an intervening unit (to include one of your own) grant cover saves.

Of course then you'd have to differentiate between shooting through a wall with no windows and one with windows I guess.

Well no system is perfect and at least it'd work better than the old LoS rules we had before TLoS.