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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 11:37:12
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Human Auxiliary to the Empire
Suffolk, UK
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Me and a friend sat down yesterday and played 2 games of 40k 7th ed. We are both "experienced" wargamers, but we hadn't played 40k for around 20 years.
In prep, I had bought the rulebook and we had both viewed the excellent miniwargaming.com youtube videos on how to play 40k (6th).
Whilst we had a day of fun, enjoyed playing and both said we thought we had got a half-decent grip on the rules (although we are still learning of course), we also both thought that the rules were poor in places. Given the age of the rules and the number of editions, I was unpleasantly surprised.
The first issue we came across was the space marine codex appears to have no weapon profile for the autocannon. When my opponent came to shoot with his Predator on turn 1, we spent several minutes trying to find the stats. They're just not in the book.
Once google had come to the rescue, we attempted to resolve his shooting on my Piranha. The rules on front/side/rear armour facing are inept. Where are the "corners" on a Piranha? The rules don't give a satisfactory explanation. In short, if you're not playing humans with nice rectangle tanks, you're left guessing.
The next issue we came across was regarding facing. Do I need to pivot my models to face their intended targets in the movement phase? Or do non-vehicle models have a 360 degree field of view? The rules for line of sight do not appear to cover this and we couldn't find an answer. For simplicity, we decided just to go with 360 degrees.
Another problem we ran into was Kroot sniper rounds. The strength of the weapon is listed as X, but no explanation is provided as to what that means. We wasted several minutes searching through the codex and rulebook, before once again resorting to google.
The To-Wound table is annoying. To-Hit, I know that BS+D6 must equal 7 to hit. It's more complex to work out what is needed to wound without having to look up on a table every time. Then we come to allocation of wounds and deciding which is the nearest model. On more than one occasion it wasn't clear which model was nearest (due to multiple firers on multiple targets), which was important when considering potential casualties in the front rank of a unit carrying special or heavy weapons.
We found the assault phase to be very fiddly. Firstly, random charge range seems highly strange and adds a large degree of inaccuracy. We have exact movement distances, exact firing ranges, we're allowed to pre-measure everything, yet the charge range is random between 2-12 inches? It just doesn't seem to fit. The idea of being able to move 6, but potentially only charge 2, is laughable.
We also found the need to get large quantities of models into base-to-base contact logistically awkward, with multiple movements (initial charge, pile in, remove casualties, pile in, remove casualties, pile in, pile in) in a single round of combat. Plastic models got knocked over, stuff got shifted about accidentally, posing of models made moving them in close proximity to each other very difficult and distances were impossible to measure accurately. In short, it was such a faff that it made the entire assault phase no fun at all and after we had done it once, we both decided not to declare any more charges.
These are things which stick out most in the memory. I would like to state again that overall we enjoyed the game and will play again. I am sure there are answers to the above, I also know that any first play of a new game is going to involve some stop-start, searching through rulebooks etc. However, I was quite frustrated with how difficult it was to locate answers to some queries, especially when they seemed to be such run-of-the-mill elements that are going to come up in every game. Having paid the princely sum of £50 for a rule book, I would expect the rules to be much clearer than they are in places. When I have a rules query, I expect to be able to look up a clear answer. Failing that, I would at least expect to be able to find rules that deal with my question, even if it brings me to "ok, well I guess it means this, we'll do it this way". Not being able to find rules that adequately cover such core principles as line-of-sight seems pretty inexcusable.
Games Workshop really need to sit down with their rulebook, some newbie gamers and observe how easily the rulebook instructs how to play the game. Compared to other wargames I've played, 40k falls short by some margin.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 11:53:54
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Decrepit Dakkanaut
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I think this is more a 40k General Discussion topic. The rules have issues for a well known time and 6th + 7th edition has only exacerbated some of those issues while glossing over other points of discussion.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 11:55:53
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Blood-Drenched Death Company Marine
Little Rock, Arkansas
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Yes, trying to teach new people the game nowadays is nightmarish. I usually do it by taking a couple basic marine forces and ignoring chapter tactics, warlord traits, mysterious objectives, and other tacked-on rules until later games.
As for your rules issues:
-Draw a cross through the center of your vehicle. There are your facings.
-non vehicles have 360 vision, yes.
-strength x is effectively "strength equal to toughness of enemy," and is used largely by poison and sniper weapons. In practice it means ignore the strength value and look at its special rules to figure out wounding. (snipers are generally 4+ to wound with 6's being ap2.)
-Wound chart is pretty easy. If the strength and toughness are tied, it's a 50/50 shot (4+). Each point of difference swings the die result needed a step in favor of that side. (IE adding a strength would make it 3+, another 2+.) The only abnormality is at high toughnesses that once you go past 6+ to wound, there's another step of 6+, and then after that you can't wound them.
-If you can't figure out which model is closest, you (the guy getting shot at) pick one and move on.
-random assault range is laughably dumb, yes. You are far from alone in thinking this. Although, as with everything in this world, there are enough people that SOMEONE will defend it, no matter how bad of a thing it is.
-We generally only worry about accurate assault phase movement to the point where we know everyone got in range to melee. Beyond that, if you want a certain model in b2b and it looks like he could make it, put him there.
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20000+ points
Tournament reports:
1234567 |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 13:15:00
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Cosmic Joe
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With the rules being so bad, it really depends on who you're playing with. If you have a good friend to play with, you'll have fun. (but then, you could have fun with most any game.)
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Also, check out my history blog: Minimum Wage Historian, a fun place to check out history that often falls between the couch cushions. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 13:30:26
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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[DCM]
Moustache-twirling Princeps
Gone-to-ground in the craters of Coventry
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The rules need a huge clean-up.
Lots of them need to be merged, like Sniper and Poison. Sniper includes a poison-like effect, so the Sniper rule should read the same: Sniper(4). Fleshbane is Poison(2).
Melta and Armourbane, etc.
All codices have a profile summary in the back, listing all the weapons and models in the book. Even if the rules are in the main rulebook, the stats are there too.
As said, To-Wound is 'easy', once you get the hang of it.
A tied S/T is 4+ to wound.
If 1 or 2 different, add or take 1 or 2 to be 3+/5+ or 2+/6+.
3 different is also 2+ or 6+.
If T is 4 more than S, you cannot usually wound.
They should really colour-code the graphs better, as that would make it easier to work out.
40k is a mess, and I hope 8th hurries up. They missed a trick with 7th.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 13:55:12
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Longtime Dakkanaut
Minneapolis, MN
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Skinnereal wrote:All codices have a profile summary in the back, listing all the weapons and models in the book. Even if the rules are in the main rulebook, the stats are there too.
No - the autocannon profile is not in the back of the SM codex, and they inexplicably removed the "big table of weapon profiles" from the BRB. Typical GW oversight.
Given the age of the rules and the number of editions, I was unpleasantly surprised.
You'd think they would have improved after 30 years of writing rules. Wait until you discover how grossly unbalanced the codexes are.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/08/01 13:59:17
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 13:58:59
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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[DCM]
Moustache-twirling Princeps
Gone-to-ground in the craters of Coventry
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DanielBeaver wrote: Skinnereal wrote:All codices have a profile summary in the back, listing all the weapons and models in the book. Even if the rules are in the main rulebook, the stats are there too.
No - the autocannon profile is not in the back of the SM codex, and they inexplicably removed the "big table of weapon profiles" from the BRB. Typical GW oversight.
Oh. It's there in the ebook version, and I cannot check the paper as I went cheap.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 14:21:40
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Sneaky Lictor
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Autocannon is in the basic rulebook, along with bolters, lasguns and other common Imperial weapons.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 15:28:05
Subject: Re:Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Regular Dakkanaut
Jacksonville, FL
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Sounds like your last match was in 2nd edition (which, if it's been 20 years, would be accurate, as 3rd edition came out in 1998). So that'd explain a lot of things being confusing. For example, I don't think the direction an infantry model is facing has mattered in 3rd edition or later.
That said, I'd have to go back and look, but I think the To Wound chart has stayed the same since even 2nd edition (and only 8th edition WFB changed the chart on that side, otherwise even WFB used the same chart). It's pretty simple, basically compare S to T:
T = S - 2 (or more) -> 2+
T = S - 1 -> 3+
T = S -> 4+
T = S + 1 -> 5+
T = S + 2 or 3 -> 6+
T = S + 4 (or more) -> can't hurt it
Having used the same chart for over two decades, I'm rather used to it. (The only change made in WFB8 was that you can always wound on a 6, even S1 vs T10.) But I haven't taken 20 years off.
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Realms of Inisfail
http://www.realmsofinisfail.com |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 16:20:11
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Esteemed Veteran Space Marine
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Skinnereal wrote:The rules need a huge clean-up.
Lots of them need to be merged, like Sniper and Poison. Sniper includes a poison-like effect, so the Sniper rule should read the same: Sniper(4). Fleshbane is Poison(2).
Melta and Armourbane, etc.
All codices have a profile summary in the back, listing all the weapons and models in the book. Even if the rules are in the main rulebook, the stats are there too.
As said, To-Wound is 'easy', once you get the hang of it.
A tied S/T is 4+ to wound.
If 1 or 2 different, add or take 1 or 2 to be 3+/5+ or 2+/6+.
3 different is also 2+ or 6+.
If T is 4 more than S, you cannot usually wound.
They should really colour-code the graphs better, as that would make it easier to work out.
40k is a mess, and I hope 8th hurries up. They missed a trick with 7th.
I have to agree that USRs that are nothing more than a grouping of other USRs are incredibly annoying. I'd rather have Sniper weapons instead just list Poison(4), Rending, Precision Shot.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 18:25:52
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Douglas Bader
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Spectre_UK wrote:Games Workshop really need to sit down with their rulebook, some newbie gamers and observe how easily the rulebook instructs how to play the game. Compared to other wargames I've played, 40k falls short by some margin.
Yep, you've discovered what countless people before you have found: the rules for 40k are garbage that anyone other than GW would commit suicide in shame over if they had published them. You've found a few problems in your first game, and you will continue to find problems as long as you play the game. Rules won't be clear (and some of them can't be resolved no matter how hard you look), balance will be awful, and even when you do manage to understand everything it will still be an awkward mess. You can have fun despite these problems, but if you aren't seriously into the fluff and/or models you should probably just find a different game.
niv-mizzet wrote:-Draw a cross through the center of your vehicle. There are your facings.
This only works if you assume that all vehicles are Rhino-style rectangles. For other vehicles you can't do this, there just isn't any clear corner to draw the lines to. You can approximate it and go with "what seems right", but you're never going to have a definite answer about where the dividing line between facings is.
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There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 18:33:24
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Grim Rune Priest in the Eye of the Storm
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The facing thing is a problem no mat what game you play in you play with the right/wrong people.
We have had 20min arguments with clearly defined games like BattleTech and Star Fleet Battle over what facing a shot came in from.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 18:45:40
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Douglas Bader
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Anpu42 wrote:The facing thing is a problem no mat what game you play in you play with the right/wrong people.
We have had 20min arguments with clearly defined games like BattleTech and Star Fleet Battle over what facing a shot came in from.
The difference is that in games with clearly defined facings the only way to have an argument is if you're dealing with TFG (and if you disagree, get a laser line). In 40k, on the other hand, you're guaranteed to have problems because nobody has any clue where the dividing line is.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/08/01 18:46:16
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 18:48:04
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Cosmic Joe
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You should probably try a different game before jumping back into 40k.
There are so many good ones to choose from now.
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Also, check out my history blog: Minimum Wage Historian, a fun place to check out history that often falls between the couch cushions. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 18:51:51
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Focused Fire Warrior
New Zealand
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A lot of the problems with your weapon profiles is that they try and include as little as possible in codices that they can put in the rulebook instead, with the aim of making people buy both. In 3rd everything, including army lists for every race, was in the rule book but i guess they figured that was very unprofitable. I must admit i would have been totally lost going from 3rd into 6th without a really experienced mate who usually plays gm for us to clarify everything.
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6000pts
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 19:31:28
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer
Somewhere in south-central England.
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Anpu42 wrote:The facing thing is a problem no mat what game you play in you play with the right/wrong people.
We have had 20min arguments with clearly defined games like BattleTech and Star Fleet Battle over what facing a shot came in from.
Wow! I haven't!
The key advantage of hex grid games is that ranges, facings and arcs are easily and precisely defined. You must have some very argumentative friends.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 19:42:41
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Grim Rune Priest in the Eye of the Storm
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Kilkrazy wrote: Anpu42 wrote:The facing thing is a problem no mat what game you play in you play with the right/wrong people.
We have had 20min arguments with clearly defined games like BattleTech and Star Fleet Battle over what facing a shot came in from.
Wow! I haven't!
The key advantage of hex grid games is that ranges, facings and arcs are easily and precisely defined. You must have some very argumentative friends.
Actually it is quite easy to split the corner on a Hex. We just had to use direction of travell to make the final decision.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 19:50:23
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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The Daemon Possessing Fulgrim's Body
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Peregrine wrote:
Yep, you've discovered what countless people before you have found: the rules for 40k are garbage that anyone other than GW would commit suicide in shame over if they had published them.
Aw, c,mon, Peregrine, I mean, we know you're 'not a fan' but, seriously?
Stuff like this goes beyond any sensible criticism and just makes the author look like an over-emotional, hyperbolic fool.
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We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Ask me about
Barnstaple Slayers Club |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 19:50:48
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Loyal Necron Lychguard
Netherlands
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It's like that with most games.
If you haven't played it for 20 years, and suddenly start with all rules included and try to follow them by the letter you are going to have a hard time.
Most of your issues will be clear within a game, except for the charge-range.
Some people hate it and some people like it. I personally enjoy the random charge, despite playing Blood Angels.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 19:57:31
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Cosmic Joe
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It has so many more issues than random charge range.
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Also, check out my history blog: Minimum Wage Historian, a fun place to check out history that often falls between the couch cushions. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 20:00:45
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Douglas Bader
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Azreal13 wrote:Stuff like this goes beyond any sensible criticism and just makes the author look like an over-emotional, hyperbolic fool.
Sure, it's slight exaggeration, but the basic point is true: the rules suck, and anyone but GW would be embarrassed to have them published under their name. Obviously nobody would commit ritual suicide over their failures, but they'd certainly consider it a mark of shame and either immediately start working on a new edition to fix the problem or hope that the game quietly dies and nobody remembers it in a few years.
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There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 20:26:57
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer
Somewhere in south-central England.
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Anpu42 wrote: Kilkrazy wrote: Anpu42 wrote:The facing thing is a problem no mat what game you play in you play with the right/wrong people.
We have had 20min arguments with clearly defined games like BattleTech and Star Fleet Battle over what facing a shot came in from.
Wow! I haven't!
The key advantage of hex grid games is that ranges, facings and arcs are easily and precisely defined. You must have some very argumentative friends.
Actually it is quite easy to split the corner on a Hex. We just had to use direction of travell to make the final decision.
That is why you have a rule, and the rule solves the problem.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 21:08:40
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Wraith
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After playing many other games, the dice mechanic is 40k is entirely counter intuitive for any new player. With a "Roll High, Roll High, Roll Low" with all targets being a combination of two stats plus an additional table makes this a bit silly. In a better version for the real scale of 40k, your BS would be your target for hits, and if you hit, you assume damage. Them you roll again to see if this damage is enough to break through armor. Then the controlling player gets to remove models of their choosing.
The "save" mechanic of 40k feels like too much and has lead to some of the crazier crap in 40k.
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Shine on, Kaldor Dayglow!
Not Ken Lobb
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 22:17:37
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Basecoated Black
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TheKbob wrote:After playing many other games, the dice mechanic is 40k is entirely counter intuitive for any new player. With a "Roll High, Roll High, Roll Low" with all targets being a combination of two stats plus an additional table makes this a bit silly. In a better version for the real scale of 40k, your BS would be your target for hits, and if you hit, you assume damage. Them you roll again to see if this damage is enough to break through armor. Then the controlling player gets to remove models of their choosing.
Video games have been constantly evolving and most of them use this exactly system of: if you hit, you deal damage. You will just a pool of health that'll determine whether you die. This works great for both small games and large games.
I think what GW was trying to get away from was having " hp" for every unit in the game, which would mean that the player would have to keep track of that. Instead, they opted for this extra "to-wound" stage. I'm not advocating that it's a great way to go, but I can see its advantage over having a health system.
I can definitely say that recent editions are overall easier to get into than 2nd edition ever was (which was my introduction).
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Actions define a person. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 22:27:30
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Fixture of Dakka
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Dshrike wrote:I think what GW was trying to get away from was having " hp" for every unit in the game, which would mean that the player would have to keep track of that. Instead, they opted for this extra "to-wound" stage. I'm not advocating that it's a great way to go, but I can see its advantage over having a health system.
Well I thought this was a bad mechanic, but seeing how Battletech and other games do it with armour and health points, I think GW ideas is great. Even PP has hit points or what not. So you get hit and then wound, then get unwounded I think is better because once you get a wound you eliminate your minis instead of keeping track of health points. while it's not perfect, you still keeping track of vehicles and MC and Characters, it is less house keeping than it is in other games.
While I wish GW got rid of to hit, to wound, then cover saves so you wound never occurred (Cover saves should be dice modifiers and speed up the game with less die rolling in my opinion). I think of the minis in a normal squad/brood as hit counter points for that squad. So since you are basically moving the squad as one entity because minis need to be within 2" of each other, your stat is really the squad with health points and the minis in most case represent one health point each.
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Agies Grimm:The "Learn to play, bro" mentality is mostly just a way for someone to try to shame you by implying that their metaphorical nerd-wiener is bigger than yours. Which, ironically, I think nerds do even more vehemently than jocks.
Everything is made up and the points don't matter. 40K or Who's Line is it Anyway?
Auticus wrote: Or in summation: its ok to exploit shoddy points because those are rules and gamers exist to find rules loopholes (they are still "legal"), but if the same force can be composed without structure, it emotionally feels "wrong". |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 22:49:12
Subject: Re:Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Sinister Chaos Marine
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Yep, GW don't really care how bad their rules are, only that they can make a profit with them. Unfortunately I seem to struggle to be able to kick the plastic crack that is Gee Dubs fine models, so I guess I get to be part of their money-making machine for a little longer. I don't feel like they're too terrible ultimately, you've just got to houserule things and ignore other parts you and your group find to be too tedious and silly. I guess the best outcome we could hope for would be that GW gets taken over by a company who care (which IMO is very unlikely), but until then we have to put up with their money-grabbing crap. In the long run, remember to 'forge the narrative' with everything GW does, and if you have a good group of friends you should have a very enjoyable experience.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 23:08:47
Subject: Re:Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Posts with Authority
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Bet you're glad you asked, Spectre.
Personally, I spotted a problem right there in the topic title: 'Adult gamer plays 40K'. Like MWHistorian said, you can have fun with it, but with your experience you might have more with some other space-based rules. (I like the look of this 'un, meself)
Also, I can imagine how great it feels to be told 'play something else, quick!' just after dropping fitty quid on the book. Sorry!
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/01 23:40:50
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Regular Dakkanaut
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Spectre_UK wrote:Me and a friend sat down yesterday and played 2 games of 40k 7th ed. We are both "experienced" wargamers, but we hadn't played 40k for around 20 years.
In prep, I had bought the rulebook and we had both viewed the excellent miniwargaming.com youtube videos on how to play 40k (6th).
Whilst we had a day of fun, enjoyed playing and both said we thought we had got a half-decent grip on the rules (although we are still learning of course), we also both thought that the rules were poor in places. Given the age of the rules and the number of editions, I was unpleasantly surprised.
The first issue we came across was the space marine codex appears to have no weapon profile for the autocannon. When my opponent came to shoot with his Predator on turn 1, we spent several minutes trying to find the stats. They're just not in the book.
Codexes are pretty sloppy in this regard. The summaries at the back are frequently either missing or incorrect. Most gamers have memorised the stats for basic weapons like this anyway so we wouldn't even notice, obviously if you're a newbie it is a problem.
Once google had come to the rescue, we attempted to resolve his shooting on my Piranha. The rules on front/side/rear armour facing are inept. Where are the "corners" on a Piranha? The rules don't give a satisfactory explanation. In short, if you're not playing humans with nice rectangle tanks, you're left guessing.
I would draw an imaginary line through the oblong-bit and basically ignore the two passengers for this purpose. It is a little clunky but it's easy to find a work around.
The next issue we came across was regarding facing. Do I need to pivot my models to face their intended targets in the movement phase? Or do non-vehicle models have a 360 degree field of view? The rules for line of sight do not appear to cover this and we couldn't find an answer. For simplicity, we decided just to go with 360 degrees.
I have no idea if this is exclicitly written in the 6th edition rulebook, and I can't be bothered to look  even if it is there, key information is frequently ridden away within a wall of text in 40k rulebooks, it doesn't have the linear simplicity you might expect.
Another problem we ran into was Kroot sniper rounds. The strength of the weapon is listed as X, but no explanation is provided as to what that means. We wasted several minutes searching through the codex and rulebook, before once again resorting to google.
If you read the sniper special rule that explains how they work. The x doesn't really mean anything it's just there as a placeholder.
The To-Wound table is annoying. To-Hit, I know that BS+D6 must equal 7 to hit. It's more complex to work out what is needed to wound without having to look up on a table every time. Then we come to allocation of wounds and deciding which is the nearest model. On more than one occasion it wasn't clear which model was nearest (due to multiple firers on multiple targets), which was important when considering potential casualties in the front rank of a unit carrying special or heavy weapons.
The two-wound table should become second nature to you fairly quickly, can't say I have any complaints there. The current wound allocation method is very slow and inprecise, but the reason for that is that they wanted to make infantry squads more than just the special weapon and sergeant with ablative wounds. Like many people I welcomed this change since I was sick of the 5th edition wound allocation, where you had to destroy a squad's ablative wounds before you could kill the important bits - special weapons and independant charecters -, and where an enemy squad could move a model to a specific location and there being literally nothing you could do to move it without kiling every single other model in the unit first. However the slowness and ambiguity of the new system tired me very quickly. I'd happily go back to the old system.
We found the assault phase to be very fiddly. Firstly, random charge range seems highly strange and adds a large degree of inaccuracy. We have exact movement distances, exact firing ranges, we're allowed to pre-measure everything, yet the charge range is random between 2-12 inches? It just doesn't seem to fit. The idea of being able to move 6, but potentially only charge 2, is laughable.
No complaints here.
We also found the need to get large quantities of models into base-to-base contact logistically awkward, with multiple movements (initial charge, pile in, remove casualties, pile in, remove casualties, pile in, pile in) in a single round of combat. Plastic models got knocked over, stuff got shifted about accidentally, posing of models made moving them in close proximity to each other very difficult and distances were impossible to measure accurately. In short, it was such a faff that it made the entire assault phase no fun at all and after we had done it once, we both decided not to declare any more charges.
Yup. Now try playing a game where 120 of your imperial guard get assaulted by 150 gaunts in a single assault phase and tell me you still enjoy it after the third hour
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/02 00:04:36
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Lieutenant General
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pax_imperialis wrote:In 3rd everything, including army lists for every race, was in the rule book but i guess they figured that was very unprofitable.
That was only because 3rd edition totally invalidated all of the 2nd edition codices making the rulebook lists necessary to play the game. Codices were always planned for the game and the codices for Space Marines, Dark Eldar and Blood Angels were released the same year. IIRC, Codex Space Marines was released the very next month.
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'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'
- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/08/02 00:07:16
Subject: Adult gamer plays 40k for the first time in 20 years: A negative rules experience
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Oberstleutnant
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Spectre_UK wrote:Games Workshop really need to sit down with their rulebook, some newbie gamers and observe how easily the rulebook instructs how to play the game. Compared to other wargames I've played, 40k falls short by some margin. GW has been hiring and retaining stuff for their yes-men skills rather than their game design skills - the CEO admitted as much in his investor preamble in the last week. The effects of this on the rules should be obvious and it's likely that they are literally incapable of writing good rules now because of this brain drain. All the good (and even mediocre) rules writers have left it seems and are part of the large wave of good non- gw games that are around now. We all love the 40k setting, but it's hard to get a fun tabletop experience with the wargame. You seem experienced with other wargames, so I'd sadly just recommend looking into the FFG 40k RPGs which are great, or one (or several) of the many great wargames that are around now instead if the quality of the rules is (very reasonably) a problem for you. You might find the "Why I left GW and where I went to" thread enlightening in this regard.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/08/02 00:08:32
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