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You still can start tau without paying gw. Of the combined 4000 points of 40k I have, I bought only 20 models of them from gw. The rest were from the 2nd hand market at a much cheaper price.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Moving on, if it wasn't for the price point I think I'd actually still play 40k; I really do want to try out Tau finally (I've been meaning to try them since they first came out!). I do wish GW would focus on releasing campaigns or whatever, actually show us *how* to forge the narrative in our games, because I don't think random charts do it.

Aye I think GW have become wedded to the idea that every single rules publication needs to actively sell models. There's nothing wrong with those that do, but really there's no reason we couldn't get mission/campaign rulebooks. Hell it'd be the easiest thing in the world to do a campaign rulebook - your warlord gains 5xp per battle (with options/strategies for generating more), here is a list of equipment he can buy with XP. It would take bugger all of the designers' time.

Even if it didn't have XP, just something to actually make a "narrative" out of games. Like, my FLGS only has pickup games and the occasional tournament, maybe a league once in a blue moon. But it's still all random games, there's no point other than having a game. Which I guess is on the players but coming up with a campaign setting is hard, so having some official guidance would work wonders.

Glad to be proven otherwise, but it really looks like his case is one of the rather few and melee is still vastly dominant, although I'm really happy to hear that because I play Siege and was always looking for a nice ranged list.

But yeah, let's not talk about Warmachine here. I think 40k is still very solid in it's own niche as no other game plays like it, no other game has such fluff and no other game has such models. It's just that the outbreak of other games steals some players as they seem to find mechanics/fluff/ideas that they enjoy the most and of course the biggest one is going to lose the most players due to it's community's size.

The Forge World "Imperial Armour" books contain campaign fluff. IDK if they have actual campaign scenarios.

GW used to do the worldwide campaigns for regular 40K, but that stopped a few years ago.

tiger g wrote:
So can you play WMH without a caster or jack

You cannot play without a caster since that's your "King" and your caster GIVES you free points to be spent on a Warjack. But you don't have to take Warjack, but it's a waste of free points.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Why I like 40k better than some of the alternative games

For me it's the background. Someone can argue that Warmachine or Infinity are better games until they're blue in the face, but I like 40K because I like the background. It has to be something I like in order to get me to play something else. BattleTech does that by being completely different to 40K, and the only other one in recent memory that piqued my interest was AT-43, but that died before it got going.

mrfantastical wrote:

tiger g wrote:
So can you play WMH without a caster or jack

You cannot play without a caster since that's your "King" and your caster GIVES you free points to be spent on a Warjack. But you don't have to take Warjack, but it's a waste of free points.

You actually have to take at least a warjack since you can't play with less than 2 points below the agreed points limit and every warcaster gives you at least 3 free points.

But since you can't play 40k without a HQ and troops or WHFB without a general and core troops, or Infinity without a lieutenant, or Malifaux without a master, or FoW without a HQ and Combat platoons, etc, etc, I fail to see the relevance of this question when distinguishing between games...

I see 40k as less of a game and more of a marketing tool. It doesn't really have to truly work reliably as a game because GW just really needs it to be an idea they can use to sell people an army worth of miniatures. Maybe they'll play, maybe they won't. Maybe they'll discover girls and beer and quit, but all GW cares about is whether or not they got the money first. And as much of it as possible before a given person quits.

It's also a game for 14 year olds rather than adults. Take a look at what they've done with the fiction and then compare that to fiction from when the game started. Or to FFG's RPG books. 40k is like a 14 year old boy's power fantasy. Some people are age regressed, I guess.

 frozenwastes wrote:
It's also a game for 14 year olds rather than adults. Take a look at what they've done with the fiction and then compare that to fiction from when the game started. Or to FFG's RPG books. 40k is like a 14 year old boy's power fantasy. Some people are age regressed, I guess.

Just saying: "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

The Forge World books do have campaign scenarios in them. It's not really a linked campaign system as much as it's a series of key battles you can re-enact though. The earlier edition rulebooks all had campaign systems in them. 3rd through 5th all did anyway. That really is something that GW have fallen flat on lately in my opinion. The funny part is the 3rd edition book actually had a pretty complicated system where you would track experience points per unit, and they steadily got less and less complicated over time. I bet you can get your hands on previous edition rulebooks for not much money if you want some advise for 40k campaigns. I think the 4th edition rulebook might be the best one in that regard since it provides a nice overview of different kinds of campaign you can run. map campaigns, node campaigns, node map campaigns, GMd campaigns...

 dementedwombat wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
It's also a game for 14 year olds rather than adults. Take a look at what they've done with the fiction and then compare that to fiction from when the game started. Or to FFG's RPG books. 40k is like a 14 year old boy's power fantasy. Some people are age regressed, I guess.

Just saying: "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

Oh, I'm not talking about fearing being seen as being childish. Or even fear of childishness. I'm talking about the content being fundamentally different. It's okay to like things made for 14 year old boys. I just happen to think that there's more to a book store than it's young adult section. 40k is like the young adult section in the book store if it pretended there were no other sections. A lot of what people don't like about it stems from the fact that they've lost site of the target demographic and haven't realized that they are not GW's target. So there's a mismatch of expectations. For many though, they can get right into the underdeveloped mind set and enjoy it uncritically. Even defend it as being actually good game design. I think we know though, that it's a marketing tool to sell 14 year olds as many miniatures as possible.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Oh, I'm not talking about fearing being seen as being childish. Or even fear of childishness. I'm talking about the content being fundamentally different. It's okay to like things made for 14 year old boys. I just happen to think that there's more to a book store than it's young adult section. 40k is like the young adult section in the book store if it pretended there were no other sections. A lot of what people don't like about it stems from the fact that they've lost site of the target demographic and haven't realized that they are not GW's target. So there's a mismatch of expectations. For many though, they can get right into the underdeveloped mind set and enjoy it uncritically. Even defend it as being actually good game design. I think we know though, that it's a marketing tool to sell 14 year olds as many miniatures as possible.

Pretty much this.

There is an interview out there somewhere with the original designers where they explained 'why' they designed the game of 40k the way they did. And yes, it's to appeal to the mindset of young adults and teenagers. Quite an interesting read, actually.

(It was on warseer - seems to have gone now! Anyone here have the link?)

It's true for the lore too. I don't like a lot of the current fiction. I think it's silly. Is it? Well, yes and no. Even going back to the hallowed fluff of second ed "when the fluff was good" didn't convince me (yes, I have the fluff bible). And I thought it was great then. Not so much now! And certainly, fifteen year old deadnight thought it was great.Fifteen year old deadnight would probably quite enjoy the current fluff. Late-twenties deadnight? Yeah, sorry. He's older. He likes different things. He has different expectations. He wants things that 40k as a setting doesn't offer. So yeah, I go to things that interest me now.

Then again, when you look at the stuff you loved as a kid, youll realise a lot of it sucks. I used to love the tintin cartoons. Watched them in a fig of nostalgia after the recent movie. Boy, was I disappointed - it did not age well!

Planetary Empires, to my continued surprise, is still actually available from the website.

A couple of lads at my local club are getting their heads together about employing it to allow all the random weekly games that occur to have some sort of narrative context.

That's something which definitely helps bring a story to your gaming.

 azreal13 wrote:
Planetary Empires, to my continued surprise, is still actually available from the website.

A couple of lads at my local club are getting their heads together about employing it to allow all the random weekly games that occur to have some sort of narrative context.

That's something which definitely helps bring a story to your gaming.

This is the kind of thing I'd like, but from what I recall of PE it was too much like the old 5th/6th edition WHFB map campaign, where you increase your force by capturing things but they gave tiny points values. Could be wrong though.

In any event, that's the kind of product I want to see GW make. I could get behind various campaigns that allowed for all armies (instead of something like Damocles that's Imperium vs. Tau or Badab War that's Marine v. Marine) with some outlines of how to make it work, without requiring a GM or third party arbiter. That was part of my issue with Crusade of Fire - it basically came out and said it needed a GM, and had nonsense like like that battle with daemons randomly appearing. Take that out, remove dependencies on terrain (e.g. no Zone Mortalis) and have something that is flexible enough to serve as a baseline campaign!

They're not playing it straight out of the box, So anything like that will likely be altered.

TBH, it doesn't really matter about stuff like that with a product like this anyway, as, unlike the core game, if you're using it, you're already demonstrating a desire and willingness. To alter the game to better suit yourself, so if PE isn't perfect, it is decidedly less of a big deal than some of the gaping issues in the core game.

Planetary Empires is in itself a good fun product as a 3D terrain hex map. As a narrative campaign system it is a small pile of poop.

What the rules amount to is both players have some matchsticks. You play a battle and the winner gets a die roll to take one of the loser's matchsticks. Then play another battle. Keep playing battles until someone has all the matchsticks. (There are a couple of matchstick grabbing die roll modifiers.)

It could have been so much more, with a deep involving narrative campaign system, but that would have taken a designer a morning to write out.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Planetary Empires is in itself a good fun product as a 3D terrain hex map. As a narrative campaign system it is a small pile of poop.

What the rules amount to is both players have some matchsticks. You play a battle and the winner gets a die roll to take one of the loser's matchsticks. Then play another battle. Keep playing battles until someone has all the matchsticks. (There are a couple of matchstick grabbing die roll modifiers.)

It could have been so much more, with a deep involving narrative campaign system, but that would have taken a designer a morning to write out.

Would be nice, but I think that if they turned it into narrative campaign that can work with all the armies, it'd be too boring. Today I got the newsletter mail with that Astra Militarum vs Orks narrative campaign book and it's cool, but only because it has fluff behind both sides. You can't really play it using another army and have the same quality of narrative and making a campaign that has ALL the available factions in it.. that'd be either a horrible mess or something very shallow that wouldn't satisfy anyone. So.. a sandbox frame such as Planetary Empires or a series of two to four faction small narrative campaigns such as the Sanctus Reach, either way people are going to whine, unfortunately.

When I say a campaign system, I mean a set of rules to cover operational movement and supply, reinforcements and so on. Thus giving meaning to the map. In the Planetary Empires rules, the map is literally nothing except a nice looking pin board to record how many flags your side has planted.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
When I say a campaign system, I mean a set of rules to cover operational movement and supply, reinforcements and so on. Thus giving meaning to the map. In the Planetary Empires rules, the map is literally nothing except a nice looking pin board to record how many flags your side has planted.

I like what they're doing with the different campaign books, just not that they tend to be for two armies only. Also it smells of an ulterior motive, that they somehow expect people to buy the campaign book and then buy the two armies at a substantial points to fight the campaign. Although to be fair that's nothing new, I remember the old WHFB campaign packs (Grudge of Drong, Tears of Isha, Circle of Blood) that were the same thing (albeit much cheaper).

This is what i get for going camping!

I like 40k for it's background and models. I would love random charges if it was "roll a d6 and add that to your move", so you at least be guaranteed more than 6" on the charge. My main problem with 40k is trying to figure out where all the rules are. I'm constantly flipping around, and everyone else seems to have it all memorized.

As far as WM/H: the models are RELATIVELY BALANCED by point cost. If you are good at the game, you can take the worst list and still beat the netlists (let's say all greylords vs double stormwall). The ickiness comes from people online constantly going "don't take that, noob" instead of letting people learn their own way. I've never been "tabled" in WM/H, but I certainly lose every time in 40k (cuz I don't have it down yet).

I really like this thread, and I'm sorry for pulling it a bit OT again, but I think it's important to mention what I really do love about 40k: my LGS plays it, and I like gaming. Throw tons of dice and move plastic mans around on a table of alien ruins. Bad A.

WMH is more mechanical. The game is much more structured and rigid than 40k.

WMH is great for those who want to test/prove their mettle against other people. And those who want to spend who-knows-how-long studying the game and making each choice optimal. Kind of like the people who would play competitive chess.

40k is a lost more free-form. Many more options, and less effort is put into making them all have a place and time where they're optimal. Far more freedom to use alternate models or mod the 'official' ones. Most models even come with extra options in-box that don't even effect the game. Pointless to many who view tabletop wargaming as purely an intellectual challenge, but they make the hobby for other gamers. Kind of like the people who would get together and throw around a frizbee with no league or goal, just to have fun.

40k is much maligned for seeing itself as a beer & pretzels game, but I think that is one of it's strongest points, for me. However, others do prefer less of that in their game. Fortunately, not everyone need prefer the same game. And most metas can support at least 2 games.

No one opinion is "right" here. Tabletop gaming is healthiest when there is a wide array of options. I think WMH being an option makes 40k better, personally. It builds the hobby, even if I don't play it.

As a secondary issue, all forces in WMH are led by a Named character. I'm not fielding "my warcaster", I'm fielding 'Kraye'. In 40k, there are special characters, but most armies are led by "your leader". My forces are led by my Captain Andicar of Wings of Dawn 7th company (not entirely codex-compliant - compannies 2-8 are battle companies). I can completely make up engagements and charecters. In WMH, Kraye is doing something specific, fighting a specific enemy in a specific place. Captain Andicar was last seen on Kromir VII, avenging his fallen brethren from the failed Kantilus IV campaign. Because he's mine, I can make that stuff up, and it can lead to significant investment. Lots of fun for me, but not necessarily you.

I do see WMH more balanced than 40k. But balance isn't everything. And in a good meta that can be taken into account (either by knowing who you're facing, and list-building with that in mind, or by doing 2v2s or FFAs). But at the end of the day, that's not what I'm looking for in a tabletop.

D&D4 was more balanced than 3.5. But many people (not all) prefered 3.5 (and moved on to Pathfinder, or still play 3.5). More balanced doesn't always mean a better game for everybody. It is absolutely key for some, yes, but not everybody wants the same thing out of this hobby.

Oh, and as for the WMH Melee vs Ranged argument, I always felt like Cygnar was always paying for the mistake of bringing guns to a knife fight. I do miss Kraye though. I might need to play another game or two of WMH just to field him...

We played an awesome game of 40k - Appocalypse lite yesterday which had everything I liked about 40k based vaguley on the last stand scenario from the Raid on Kastrol Imperial Armour book

fun background, loads of destruction - often in slightly mad ways - Lifta Droppa wagon - people getting into their roles as commanders:

We had an Elysian Drop troop commander who was all into fire zone and cotnrol and working stuff out - myself and the other Ork Boss figured he was like one of our Gretchin Runt telling the Marine boyz what was clever but needing a slap to keep him in line.
The marine commander wanted to get stuck in and take heads until extracted, the Guard - to survive.
The Orks wanted to get to grips with the Humiez but keeping a wary eye on the other Orks to make sure they did come into out patch (we attacked from opposite ends of the table)

Many in game desciions on both sides were based on what was fun or what we figured the commanders would do - so the lifta droppa gunner was way too busy flinging rhinos about to concetrate on the loads of points in one vanguard/Captain squad.
Trying for 12" charges - cos thats where the 'ard boyz were and the Boss wanted to get stuck in.....
Marines slaightered though various mobs in h-t-h

Otherwise I agree completely with this:

WMH is more mechanical. The game is much more structured and rigid than 40k.
WMH is great for those who want to test/prove their mettle against other people. And those who want to spend who-knows-how-long studying the game and making each choice optimal. Kind of like the people who would play competitive chess.

which is another reason preferer 40k

PhantomViper wrote:

mrfantastical wrote:

tiger g wrote:
So can you play WMH without a caster or jack

You cannot play without a caster since that's your "King" and your caster GIVES you free points to be spent on a Warjack. But you don't have to take Warjack, but it's a waste of free points.

You actually have to take at least a warjack since you can't play with less than 2 points below the agreed points limit and every warcaster gives you at least 3 free points.

But since you can't play 40k without a HQ and troops or WHFB without a general and core troops, or Infinity without a lieutenant, or Malifaux without a master, or FoW without a HQ and Combat platoons, etc, etc, I fail to see the relevance of this question when distinguishing between games...

The relavence is in 40 k you can play without hq. (unbound) and the rules work without them. All the other games you need a special name character. In 40 k I can use a grot as my leader, not the most effective but you can play it. No war jack rules do not work in WMH .

tiger g wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

mrfantastical wrote:

tiger g wrote:
So can you play WMH without a caster or jack

You cannot play without a caster since that's your "King" and your caster GIVES you free points to be spent on a Warjack. But you don't have to take Warjack, but it's a waste of free points.

You actually have to take at least a warjack since you can't play with less than 2 points below the agreed points limit and every warcaster gives you at least 3 free points.

But since you can't play 40k without a HQ and troops or WHFB without a general and core troops, or Infinity without a lieutenant, or Malifaux without a master, or FoW without a HQ and Combat platoons, etc, etc, I fail to see the relevance of this question when distinguishing between games...

The relavence is in 40 k you can play without hq. (unbound) and the rules work without them. All the other games you need a special name character. In 40 k I can use a grot as my leader, not the most effective but you can play it. No war jack rules do not work in WMH .

And Unbound is a new thing, and wasn't relevant until a month or two ago, and isn't that realistic anyways. So I don't think that comparison is really viable. Besides, WMH is built around warcasters fighting each other, and warcasters use warjacks, so it wouldn't make sense not to take any since if you didn't have warjacks, you wouldn't need a warcaster in the first place; there's actually a lot of conflicts in the WMH fluff that don't involve warcasters, just the game doesn't focus on that.

To address an earlier point, one thing that keeps me wanting to dabble in 40k again is the fact that it doesn't feel as metagamey; I mean, I know that list building and the like is a thing, but it doesn't seem anywhere near on the level that other games (specifically WMH) is. Plus, games feel overall less mechanical and more, for lack of a better word, fun. When I play WMH I agonize over choices like I'm playing chess, trying to outwit my opponent and second guess their moves. When I played 40k it was a lot more spontaneous and "Eh this might not work, but it feels like the right thing to do" which is something I would never, ever, ever do in WMH because it's so dangerous.

tiger g wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

mrfantastical wrote:

tiger g wrote:
So can you play WMH without a caster or jack

You cannot play without a caster since that's your "King" and your caster GIVES you free points to be spent on a Warjack. But you don't have to take Warjack, but it's a waste of free points.

You actually have to take at least a warjack since you can't play with less than 2 points below the agreed points limit and every warcaster gives you at least 3 free points.

But since you can't play 40k without a HQ and troops or WHFB without a general and core troops, or Infinity without a lieutenant, or Malifaux without a master, or FoW without a HQ and Combat platoons, etc, etc, I fail to see the relevance of this question when distinguishing between games...

The relavence is in 40 k you can play without hq. (unbound) and the rules work without them. All the other games you need a special name character. In 40 k I can use a grot as my leader, not the most effective but you can play it.

If I wan't to ignore the rules (which is basically what unbound does in 40k), then I can also play perfectly well without a warcaster in WMH, or without any sort of leader in any of those other games that I mentioned.

Saying that you can ignore the rules isn't really a good selling point when you are trying to praise those same rules.

tiger g wrote:

No war jack rules do not work in WMH .

I don't even know what you mean with this?! Are you claiming that you can't play WMH without Warjacks? Or that you can't use Warjacks without Warcasters? Because you would be wrong on both accounts...

Maybe they mean the rules for Warjacks just don't work, like they're underpowered or something....

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
Maybe they mean the rules for Warjacks just don't work, like they're underpowered or something....

Also not true.

PhantomViper wrote:
I don't even know what you mean with this?! Are you claiming that you can't play WMH without Warjacks? Or that you can't use Warjacks without Warcasters? Because you would be wrong on both accounts...

I think they mean that you need to take at least 1 Warjack for a Warcaster (at least I'm pretty sure you do) since they need to have a Battlegroup.

WayneTheGame wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
I don't even know what you mean with this?! Are you claiming that you can't play WMH without Warjacks? Or that you can't use Warjacks without Warcasters? Because you would be wrong on both accounts...

I think they mean that you need to take at least 1 Warjack for a Warcaster (at least I'm pretty sure you do) since they need to have a Battlegroup.

after checking the rulebook: you don't have to take one at all, but having one does help.

On topic:


This thread is a good one as it makes us all think as to our motivations behind the games we play so i'll chuck my hat into the ring.

The good old 40k:

+ The models still have the rule of cool about them despite the *ahem* prices
+ The background is still the best of any game no matter what you look at you can always find some cheeky way they've nicked things from real life/history.

In this instance 40k is still streets ahead, but the "cuckoo" way GW are doing things means it gets the apathy vote. The rules could actually be quite competent provided they were given a good clean up to try and avoid those nasty loopholes/grey areas that tend to result in "wtf" moments. The unbound thing was crazy, nobody i know actually wanted it and its been defacto banned by mutual agreement, a few experiments are planned i think...

The much talked about competition warmahordes:

+ games run darn smoothly every time, no hitches other than player mistakes/errors (beware that can cost you games...)
+ The caster/warlock & focus/fury mechanics. Very innovative and refeshing plus at it simplest you only need to buy a new caster and you have a different way of playing your army.
+ many different factions to choose from. They are all very different from each other.
+ The page 5 declaration: creates a general level playing field of what to expect from the game, it cuts out many of the 40k "waac" of "fluff bunny" issues.
+ The overall "balance" feels much better: sure you can take the cheese, filth or whatever you call it, however it does not mean that all the armies you see look the same far from it. Oddball builds can screw things up big time when they are not expected.

Now for a few cons as it were:

- The game is all about combs/sequencing things correctly to get the best out of them. Due to that fact each unit activates does its actions then you move on, can result in much fustration at first. That is until you figure out how to do it yourself then things get messy.
- Hardcounters do exist, they are there if you bother to look and are a nasty suprise but again things can be turned on their heads...
- The learning curve is darn steep, if you take the plunge be prepeared to be battered badly. The game does not go into easy mode.
- the game runs best at 50pts any lower and in my opinion some forces are hit hard due to the fact thay cannot take the units they "need" to make things work properly


those are just my thoughts...

For me:

Warmahordes: I don't like the steam punk or whatever that theme is. Also just about as expensive so why switch.

Infinity:i like the game system but no one plays near me. I would play this in addition to 40k/fantasy but it could not be my sole game due to the smaller scale. (just a squad of guys)

FoW - looks ok but I don't know anyone who plays. again could never be a replacement but i wouldn't mind putting together an army. but there are plenty of WW2 board games I could play for cheaper.

That's all I can list as I have never seen anyone else play anything else.