Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 MWHistorian wrote:
You didn't actually read what I wrote, did you? Because that's exactly what I said, only added that that's no fun for either party. And I don't carry multiple armies around with me when I go to play. That's a lot of space. So, to recap, because of the disparity of power levels you either have to auto-loose or refuse to play.
Yeah, that sounds great for pick up games.
Edit: And being condescending doesn't make you sound smarter.

Some time ago I played against a Necron player that clearly had the better force. Was a PuG. I was still working on my army and brought a cobbled-together list that, kinda, on some levels made some sense. ish.

We were playing at 1500 and the Necron player was honest with me - based on what he had, and what i'd brought, he'd have tabled me by turn 4. So he dropped 200 points and we had a really fun game. I still lost, but learnt a ton.

Now i'm not saying that applies here, but what does apply is the course of action... our choices aren't "auto-lose" or "refuse to play", there's option three which is talk it over. Be honest; "I really do see how I can win, the balance is so heavily in your favour, do you have a less cheesy list you could play?". Maybe they have another list they can table knowing that you're looking for a friendly fun game.

Remember; humans. They're not all power-hungry must-win-bots.

Don't pay attention to the internet chatter. Both sides love to trot out anecdotal evidence and examine things in a vacuum based on potential while ignoring nuance. Unless you're planning on playing in major tournaments right away there's no reason to chase the national meta. You'll only make yourself frustrated. If you and your friends feel like playing then play and adjust the game to match your play style. Most of all, have fun.

To the OP: The answer to this question is always "Depends. Do you have a decent group and are you prepared to buy a bunch more models?" If you want to play 40k you're going to need to make sure the community is friendly; I (and I'm sure many of the other people complaining) have had bad experiences with overly-competitive metagames and players that make the game as a whole entirely unfun; 40k works best if you talk to the other guy and work out what level of play you're aiming for before dumping your PAGK list on the table and finding you're fighting an invisible Centurion deathstar or something similarly silly.

As to your situation specifically GK aren't and shouldn't have been a standalone Codex, they're an allied force in the vein of MT/Skitarii with the added benefit of an almost totally taxless detachment to run them alongside other Imperial armies. I've had a lot more success treating my GK like an elite melee unit in Guard or Space Marines than I ever had running them alone; you get range, cost-effective firepower, and cost-effective durability out of other armies that's impossible in GK, and the GK bring psychic dice and melee punch to armies that don't have it.

For a 1,500pt pure GK or GK/SM force you're looking at about $5-600, probably more for a GK/Guard force depending on what's in it; keep in mind, though, that something like $150-200 of that is paint and rules.

The game hasn't entirely degenerated into Knights vs. Baneblades, but it's not a footslogger's game anymore the way 4th was.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
To the OP: The answer to this question is always "Depends. Do you have a decent group and are you prepared to buy a bunch more models?" If you want to play 40k you're going to need to make sure the community is friendly; I (and I'm sure many of the other people complaining) have had bad experiences with overly-competitive metagames and players that make the game as a whole entirely unfun; 40k works best if you talk to the other guy and work out what level of play you're aiming for before dumping your PAGK list on the table and finding you're fighting an invisible Centurion deathstar or something similarly silly.

As to your situation specifically GK aren't and shouldn't have been a standalone Codex, they're an allied force in the vein of MT/Skitarii with the added benefit of an almost totally taxless detachment to run them alongside other Imperial armies. I've had a lot more success treating my GK like an elite melee unit in Guard or Space Marines than I ever had running them alone; you get range, cost-effective firepower, and cost-effective durability out of other armies that's impossible in GK, and the GK bring psychic dice and melee punch to armies that don't have it.

For a 1,500pt pure GK or GK/SM force you're looking at about $5-600, probably more for a GK/Guard force depending on what's in it; keep in mind, though, that something like $150-200 of that is paint and rules.

The game hasn't entirely degenerated into Knights vs. Baneblades, but it's not a footslogger's game anymore the way 4th was.

I've actually had some success running solo GK in 7th as a Deep Striking null deployment force, with Gate of Infinity support units porting around the board. Problem with that style is that if it goes wrong, it goes VERY wrong. Has made for some really enjoyable matches though.

 Toofast wrote:
To all those who say the competitive players complain about the imbalance, you couldn't be more wrong. Competitive players understand that the meta changes as books are released, and we need to keep playtesting and updating our lists based on what's powerful at the moment. The casual players who bring mediocre lists to an FLGS and get roflstomped are the ones complaining about the balance issues. I've been playing pod marines with invisible grav star in tournaments for the past year. I also have eldar. After doing the math on the new eldar vs my marines, I've decided to switch to a jetbike army backed up by D weapons. Casual players unwilling to spend $400-500 to update their army when a new OP book comes out are the ones who suffer and therefore complain. I haven't talked to a single highly competitive tournament player that thinks the new eldar are unstoppable. Every casual player in my area is up in arms about them.

It's not just casual players - it's a lot of casual players who think they're competitive because they read about things on the internet.

I mean yeah, there's some tourney players complaining and some average joes freaking out, but it's a lot of people who don't go to tournaments and who don't play against high level lists who just like to theorycraft and complain about things that they probably won't even see.

Amayasu wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Take a look at your local shop (or wherever you play) and see what they got going on. If its all 40k all the time, then sure, talk to them and see what kind of games they play.
If they play ANYTHING else, play that instead. 40k is near impossible for pick up games.

Nonsense.
As long as your opponent is a nice person, 40k works very well for pick up games.
That said, the greatest fun is to be had in playing with a solid group of friends. So do visit a local club or store and see what the folks over there are like.

Yes but with a pickup game it's a crapshoot if your opponent will be playing something overpowered, something underpowered or inadvertently taking OP units because they happen to like them. Your enjoyment in a game of 40k is 100% dependent on the kind of opponent you are playing, and a pickup game can be against virtually any type of opponent.

I'd sooner play an imbalanced game against a fun, humorous human being than a balanced game against a numberbot.

Point is, go in to your local FLGS, meet them, play some demo games and see if you like them. The humans. They're more important than the codex or the comp or the meta.

Balance changes. Rules change. This is a social game - making decisions based on something as transitory as paper is pointless.

A few people have said in this thread that if you have close friends who play you'll have a blast but don't bother otherwise... this is simply untrue. Pick up games are entirely possible. Wargaming clubs exist in most cities around the globe and many, many people find a great deal of fun playing this game.

Oh, and just to reiterate; eBay. If the Eldar-reactionists are true to their word (and the vast, vast majority are blowing hot air) then eBay is going to be a veritable gold-mine in the coming weeks!

Tell that to someone whom have to travel for hours to get to the club and pretty much have to accept whatever is avalible.

Ballanced rules aren't there for your friendly get togheters they are there so you can expect a reasonable ok game against strangers. Not everyone have the luxury of regular friendly games.

playing with the same group of friends is excruciatingly boring IMO.

Oh look, i get to play against joe's high elves again for the 9th time. Oh look, he painted one more rank of archers, exciting exciting stuff.

Oh, i get to play jims space marines again. hes drop podding in... again! for the 14th time!

pick up games and tournaments are much more exciting. but GW rules are garbage, so the game is pretty much gak all around.

kb305 wrote:
playing with the same group of friends is excruciatingly boring IMO.

Oh look, i get to play against joe's high elves again for the 9th time. Oh look, he painted one more rank of archers, exciting exciting stuff.

Oh, i get to play jims space marines again. hes drop podding in... again! for the 14th time!

pick up games and tournaments are much more exciting. but GW rules are garbage, so the game is pretty much gak all around.

So it sounds like you enjoy absolutely nothing about the game. Why do you care then?

Requizen wrote:

kb305 wrote:
playing with the same group of friends is excruciatingly boring IMO.

Oh look, i get to play against joe's high elves again for the 9th time. Oh look, he painted one more rank of archers, exciting exciting stuff.

Oh, i get to play jims space marines again. hes drop podding in... again! for the 14th time!

pick up games and tournaments are much more exciting. but GW rules are garbage, so the game is pretty much gak all around.

So it sounds like you enjoy absolutely nothing about the game. Why do you care then?

Oh look, this again.

 ImAGeek wrote:

Requizen wrote:

kb305 wrote:
playing with the same group of friends is excruciatingly boring IMO.

Oh look, i get to play against joe's high elves again for the 9th time. Oh look, he painted one more rank of archers, exciting exciting stuff.

Oh, i get to play jims space marines again. hes drop podding in... again! for the 14th time!

pick up games and tournaments are much more exciting. but GW rules are garbage, so the game is pretty much gak all around.

So it sounds like you enjoy absolutely nothing about the game. Why do you care then?

Oh look, this again.

It's what again? I'm genuinely confused. If you dislike something so much that every time you talk about it it's nothing but negativity and vitriol, why do you spend your time talking about it? What do you get out of it? Seems like an exceedingly wasteful use of time.

Requizen wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

Requizen wrote:

kb305 wrote:
playing with the same group of friends is excruciatingly boring IMO.

Oh look, i get to play against joe's high elves again for the 9th time. Oh look, he painted one more rank of archers, exciting exciting stuff.

Oh, i get to play jims space marines again. hes drop podding in... again! for the 14th time!

pick up games and tournaments are much more exciting. but GW rules are garbage, so the game is pretty much gak all around.

So it sounds like you enjoy absolutely nothing about the game. Why do you care then?

Oh look, this again.

It's what again? I'm genuinely confused. If you dislike something so much that every time you talk about it it's nothing but negativity and vitriol, why do you spend your time talking about it? What do you get out of it? Seems like an exceedingly wasteful use of time.

Let me referee here for a sec. I think what he's saying is that he doesn't find playing against the same people with the same armies fun. He likes a variety of opponents and that means pick up games and tournaments.
He says that those types of games are what he likes but 40k is no good for those types of games.
He's not saying that there's nothing he likes about 40k, only that it fails at the type of game he enjoys. (in its current manifestation.)

confoo22 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
To the OP: The answer to this question is always "Depends. Do you have a decent group and are you prepared to buy a bunch more models?" If you want to play 40k you're going to need to make sure the community is friendly; I (and I'm sure many of the other people complaining) have had bad experiences with overly-competitive metagames and players that make the game as a whole entirely unfun; 40k works best if you talk to the other guy and work out what level of play you're aiming for before dumping your PAGK list on the table and finding you're fighting an invisible Centurion deathstar or something similarly silly.

As to your situation specifically GK aren't and shouldn't have been a standalone Codex, they're an allied force in the vein of MT/Skitarii with the added benefit of an almost totally taxless detachment to run them alongside other Imperial armies. I've had a lot more success treating my GK like an elite melee unit in Guard or Space Marines than I ever had running them alone; you get range, cost-effective firepower, and cost-effective durability out of other armies that's impossible in GK, and the GK bring psychic dice and melee punch to armies that don't have it.

For a 1,500pt pure GK or GK/SM force you're looking at about $5-600, probably more for a GK/Guard force depending on what's in it; keep in mind, though, that something like $150-200 of that is paint and rules.

The game hasn't entirely degenerated into Knights vs. Baneblades, but it's not a footslogger's game anymore the way 4th was.

I've actually had some success running solo GK in 7th as a Deep Striking null deployment force, with Gate of Infinity support units porting around the board. Problem with that style is that if it goes wrong, it goes VERY wrong. Has made for some really enjoyable matches though.

Word. First-turn Deep Striking Librarian and PAGK squad gets a perfect scatter and lands right next to the Stompa, promptly blows themselves up with Vortex.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

confoo22 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
To the OP: The answer to this question is always "Depends. Do you have a decent group and are you prepared to buy a bunch more models?" If you want to play 40k you're going to need to make sure the community is friendly; I (and I'm sure many of the other people complaining) have had bad experiences with overly-competitive metagames and players that make the game as a whole entirely unfun; 40k works best if you talk to the other guy and work out what level of play you're aiming for before dumping your PAGK list on the table and finding you're fighting an invisible Centurion deathstar or something similarly silly.

As to your situation specifically GK aren't and shouldn't have been a standalone Codex, they're an allied force in the vein of MT/Skitarii with the added benefit of an almost totally taxless detachment to run them alongside other Imperial armies. I've had a lot more success treating my GK like an elite melee unit in Guard or Space Marines than I ever had running them alone; you get range, cost-effective firepower, and cost-effective durability out of other armies that's impossible in GK, and the GK bring psychic dice and melee punch to armies that don't have it.

For a 1,500pt pure GK or GK/SM force you're looking at about $5-600, probably more for a GK/Guard force depending on what's in it; keep in mind, though, that something like $150-200 of that is paint and rules.

The game hasn't entirely degenerated into Knights vs. Baneblades, but it's not a footslogger's game anymore the way 4th was.

I've actually had some success running solo GK in 7th as a Deep Striking null deployment force, with Gate of Infinity support units porting around the board. Problem with that style is that if it goes wrong, it goes VERY wrong. Has made for some really enjoyable matches though.

Word. First-turn Deep Striking Librarian and PAGK squad gets a perfect scatter and lands right next to the Stompa, promptly blows themselves up with Vortex.

Yup, that's the VERY wrong part to a tee, lol. Quite hilarious when it happens though.