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I think this is the most fun edition of 40k since 2nd edition. My only real gripe is the extreme cost of the models when compared to other games. Note I do not play tournaments anymore, my last was in 5th but the game itself is great fun. I think the fun factor dropped like a rock for 3rd-5th, and picked up in 6th and got even better in 7th. A shift to an AoS type game will push me to the other systems out there. That shift was worse than the flat out dishonest boning they gave us when they went from 2nd to 3rd. Still pissed I didn't learn my lesson and sell off my huge OnG and DE armies. They would probably screw us over again if they did that with 40k and not tell anyone except a random rumor now and then.
If you dont short hand your list, Im not reading it.
Example: Assault Intercessors- x5 -Thunder hammer and plasma pistol on sgt.
or Assault Terminators 3xTH/SS, 2xLCs
For the love of God, GW, get rid of reroll mechanics. ALL OF THEM!
I don't know or care which army you prefer to play. But I started a thread asking for GK advice and you came in and crapped all over it, going full-on brotard about how easy GK are to defeat. And now you're here whining about how they're too tough to beat! Obviously you don't play the game at all. You're just a 4chan troll who wandered on in here to bug the rest of us. Now piss off, son.
As for that Jefferson fellow, he at least offered constructive criticism in my thread instead of being all "LOL I CAN PWN UR STUPID ARMY NOOB"
But obviously you know him better than me, because he's obviously been crushing you in argument after argument on this forum for years. Obviously he's a better player and more fun to play against too, but since you don't seem to be a gamer at all that much is obvious.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/24 17:06:54
When did I say how hard they are to beat? GK additions to the game are NOT what I'm talking about. And I couldn't give a crap less about the DK. They basically volunteer to die. The opposite of Riptides, windriders, and WK.
" because he's obviously been crushing you in argument after argument on this forum for years"
LOL, okay.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/07/24 17:08:21
Uh, Martel seems to be a Blood Angel player and they're in a far worse position than Grey Knights (Dreadknights are still broken).
You're going to keep trying to weasel your way out of this because you're a sad little troll with no life and no gaming skills, but I'm ending this argument pre-emptively by putting you on ignore. Goodbye, troll.
Uh, Martel seems to be a Blood Angel player and they're in a far worse position than Grey Knights (Dreadknights are still broken).
You're going to keep trying to weasel your way out of this because you're a sad little troll with no life and no gaming skills, but I'm ending this argument pre-emptively by putting you on ignore. Goodbye, troll.
I don't know or care which army you prefer to play. But I started a thread asking for GK advice and you came in and crapped all over it, going full-on brotard about how easy GK are to defeat. And now you're here whining about how they're too tough to beat! Obviously you don't play the game at all. You're just a 4chan troll who wandered on in here to bug the rest of us. Now piss off, son.
As for that Jefferson fellow, he at least offered constructive criticism in my thread instead of being all "LOL I CAN PWN UR STUPID ARMY NOOB"
But obviously you know him better than me, because he's obviously been crushing you in argument after argument on this forum for years. Obviously he's a better player and more fun to play against too, but since you don't seem to be a gamer at all that much is obvious.
So having read that thread, he was giving advice on how he counters GK, then he got challenged on how often he beats them, to which he replied, I think you're drastically going overboard on what was said, if you think that was "LOL I CAN PWN UR STUPID ARMY NOOB". You may also want to check rule 1.
Anyhoo, 6th and 7th killed 40k in my area, so I wouldn't know how it's affected tourney play. Was gearing up to investing in a 30k army aswell
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/24 17:16:36
Throwing this out there Haldir, but maybe your game attendance is down because you're trying to reinforce old way of playing? I'm hearing the same thing from people now who try to play AoS like it was still Fantasy. It's not the same game that it used to be. If you try to force it to be that, you're not going to have fun.
40k as it is now allows for tons of unique and awesome interactions with allies and formations and unique detachments. Give it a go, start with "small" 1500 point games, and let each other bring some of the new "broken, no fun, won't play!" stuff - you might be surprised!
Galef wrote: If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
So having read that thread, he was giving advice on how he counters GK, then he got challenged on how often he beats them, to which he replied, I think you're drastically going overboard on what was said, if you think that was "LOL I CAN PWN UR STUPID ARMY NOOB".
He completely failed to address the actual topic of the thread and offered no specific advice at all. Then he started arguing with another user about how frequently he won games. No facts, statistics or figures, just "I can beat this army very easily." How useful!
Not that it matters, I'm never going to see a post from that user again.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/07/24 17:18:28
So having read that thread, he was giving advice on how he counters GK, then he got challenged on how often he beats them, to which he replied, I think you're drastically going overboard on what was said, if you think that was "LOL I CAN PWN UR STUPID ARMY NOOB".
He completely failed to address the actual topic of the thread and offered no specific advice at all. Then he started arguing with another user about how frequently he won games. No facts, statistics or figures, just "I can beat this army very easily." How useful!
Not that it matters, I'm never going to see a post from that user again.
Why are you still replying, Martel? I'm not going to read your posts. You are far and away the most annoying person here. You seem to hate 40k a lot, why don't you find a better hobby?
Well that was a mature and insightful exchange from all parties involved.
On topic...
The biggest issue with 40k is that it has a lot of good ideas, and then really gakky implementation.
Fact is, the game can seriously use some help with balancing points and abilities, clearing up vague rules or rules that don't even function, cutting down on useless redundancy, and doing away with most of the random bs that plagues this game.
It also needs to decide what kind of game it is and just be that game. All this pussyfooting about with company level, squad based combat inter mixed with individual model, platoon and skirmish level rules and increasingly shrinking point values and larger and larger models makes the game unwieldly and wonky. If it wants to be a narrative game, then let the player choose what tactical genius their commander is afflicted with that day, or what book the Psyker read that morning. Write a proper campaign system with dozens and dozens of scenarios, some based on in-game fluff, others on general campaign ideas.
Oh, and the prices make me sad. A codex of ~90% recycled fluff, art, model pictures, and rules is not worth $60.
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress
+Spaceship Gaming Enthusiast+
Live near Halifax, NS? Ask me about our group, the Ordo Haligonias!
destrucifier wrote: Why are you still replying, Martel? I'm not going to read your posts. You are far and away the most annoying person here. You seem to hate 40k a lot, why don't you find a better hobby?
Because it amuses me. I don't care if you read my posts. I'm having a lot of fun watching you hyperventilate.
Re: Jervis Johnson's article, his rise to prominence, and the obvious long-term impacts it has had on GW's development strategy:
Sure, fine, he and his friends play games in a casual, narrative setting, and they decided to intentionally unbalance and overburden their game systems to throw any semblance of "competitive" play out the window. Yes it's annoying that he/they decided that their style of play was better than the one that actually made them popular. But what really pisses me off about all this is how, in actuality, GW hasn't paid more than the barest lip service to "narrative play" in decades.
If we were really supposed to be "forging narratives" all these years, why not give us any sort of tools to do that? Look at 3rd edition 40k. This was arguably the start of a tiny trend towards streamlined competitive play, but at the same time you'll find the following:
a wide variety of highly thematic symmetric and asymmetric missions, grouped by theme, with clear attackers and defenders
a chart for rolling to determine missions
pretty good instructions for using those missions in a ladder, narrative, or map campaign
a system for handing out experience points to units who survived battles during a campaign, reducing the experience level of units who needed major reinforcements, and spending that experience on neat perks
This built on older games with excellent campaign systems like Necromunda. It provided excellent support for actually running a narrative campaign, especially for those of us who weren't 40 year old professional game designers with decades of experience in historicals to guide us. 3rd edition as a whole could have been tweaked and errata'd into better balance if they liked, and they could have continued to develop an awesome narrative campaign system to go along with it. And the system clearly wasn't intended to be competitive or balanced - but it was ok, because it still provided enough structure to actually forge a f'n narrative.
Nothing GW has done since then has ever come close to providing any sort of structure or tools for narrative play. Instead we get codexes containing useless but arguably flavorful units and options, an overwhelming glut of, random tables, random terrain, random abilities - things that might add color to the game, in some eyes, but didn't do anything for forming an actual narrative. We never got the shovels, the buckets, the water, the molds to build the sandcastle, we just got an ever-increasing pile of dry sand and got told to figure it out. Even things like the Planetary Empires hex set, which should be an ideal tool for narrative play, contained only the barest rules for running a hex campaign - a classic GW offering of incredibly thin rules banged out in 10 minutes over lunch, the kind of ruleset where the player was intended to fill in the gaps. Stuff like that is transparently intended to sell plastic and nothing more.
So in the process of intentionally breaking the game for competitive play, they provided exactly nothing to really support narrative play like they said they wanted to encourage (and AoS seems to be taking that to new extremes). I honestly think there has been major brain-drain and shift in priorities, what with most of the old hands leaving, cost cutting being rampant, and meddling from the sales department to make the rules fit the ever-increasing pace of plastic toy releases. The people who are left are (maybe) less capable than their predecessors, and certainly have less time and freedom to work on any one project. It's all regurgitated fluff, rehashed rules, and half-baked new concepts to hawk toys.
The sad state of 40k, and GW in general, is that at least back in the day, when they had fewer models to sell and lots of clever and passionate writers, they gave you a lot of rules to make a limited number of figures go a long way. These days it's exactly the opposite - they can't be bothered to give you any kind of real gaming system, but they'll sell you a new plastic toy every other week.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/07/24 17:28:58
Battlefleet Gothic ships and markers at my store, GrimDarkBits:
So in the process of intentionally breaking the game for competitive play, they provided exactly nothing to really support narrative play like they said they wanted to encourage (and AoS seems to be taking that to new extremes). I honestly think there has been major brain-drain and shift in priorities, what with most of the old hands leaving, cost cutting being rampant, and meddling from the sales department to make the rules fit the ever-increasing pace of plastic toy releases. The people who are left are (maybe) less capable than their predecessors, and certainly have less time and freedom to work on any one project. It's all regurgitated fluff, rehashed rules, and half-baked new concepts to hawk toys.
This is modern-day GW in a nutshell. As some have already observed, they make the toys and basic rules. It's up to you to make the meta-rules. As much as I enjoy the narrative aspect it's really not something that requires a slew of rules and RNG tables. In fact it's really not something that needs to be standardized at all. If GW lets players handle scenario-writing and meta/campaign goals and such on a group-by-group basis, they'll come up with stuff that's better than GW's writing anyhow.
Blacksails wrote: If it wants to be a narrative game, then let the player choose what tactical genius their commander is afflicted with that day, or what book the Psyker read that morning. Write a proper campaign system with dozens and dozens of scenarios, some based on in-game fluff, others on general campaign ideas.
What is stopping you from doing exactly this, other than constant posting of GW negativity at DakkaDakka?
Blacksails wrote: If it wants to be a narrative game, then let the player choose what tactical genius their commander is afflicted with that day, or what book the Psyker read that morning. Write a proper campaign system with dozens and dozens of scenarios, some based on in-game fluff, others on general campaign ideas.
What is stopping you from doing exactly this, other than constant posting of GW negativity at DakkaDakka?
Based off my experience, mutual consent from other players.
Blacksails wrote: If it wants to be a narrative game, then let the player choose what tactical genius their commander is afflicted with that day, or what book the Psyker read that morning. Write a proper campaign system with dozens and dozens of scenarios, some based on in-game fluff, others on general campaign ideas.
What is stopping you from doing exactly this, other than constant posting of GW negativity at DakkaDakka?
Nothing. But the claim that GW's rules are meant for "narrative" games falls flat when all the narrative has to come from the players, since they could do that with any set of rules.
Re: Jervis Johnson's article, his rise to prominence, and the obvious long-term impacts it has had on GW's development strategy:
Sure, fine, he and his friends play games in a casual, narrative setting, and they decided to intentionally unbalance and overburden their game systems to throw any semblance of "competitive" play out the window. Yes it's annoying that he/they decided that their style of play was better than the one that actually made them popular. But what really pisses me off about all this is how, in actuality, GW hasn't paid more than the barest lip service to "narrative play" in decades.
If we were really supposed to be "forging narratives" all these years, why not give us any sort of tools to do that? Look at 3rd edition 40k. This was arguably the start of a tiny trend towards streamlined competitive play, but at the same time you'll find the following:
a wide variety of highly thematic symmetric and asymmetric missions, grouped by theme, with clear attackers and defenders
a chart for rolling to determine missions
pretty good instructions for using those missions in a ladder, narrative, or map campaign
a system for handing out experience points to units who survived battles during a campaign, reducing the experience level of units who needed major reinforcements, and spending that experience on neat perks
This built on older games with excellent campaign systems like Necromunda. It provided excellent support for actually running a narrative campaign, especially for those of us who weren't 40 year old professional game designers with decades of experience in historicals to guide us. 3rd edition as a whole could have been tweaked and errata'd into better balance if they liked, and they could have continued to develop an awesome narrative campaign system to go along with it. And the system clearly wasn't intended to be competitive or balanced - but it was ok, because it still provided enough structure to actually forge a f'n narrative.
Nothing GW has done since then has ever come close to providing any sort of structure or tools for narrative play. Instead we get codexes containing useless but arguably flavorful units and options, an overwhelming glut of, random tables, random terrain, random abilities - things that might add color to the game, in some eyes, but didn't do anything for forming an actual narrative. We never got the shovels, the buckets, the water, the molds to build the sandcastle, we just got an ever-increasing pile of dry sand and got told to figure it out. Even things like the Planetary Empires hex set, which should be an ideal tool for narrative play, contained only the barest rules for running a hex campaign - a classic GW offering of incredibly thin rules banged out in 10 minutes over lunch, the kind of ruleset where the player was intended to fill in the gaps. Stuff like that is transparently intended to sell plastic and nothing more.
So in the process of intentionally breaking the game for competitive play, they provided exactly nothing to really support narrative play like they said they wanted to encourage (and AoS seems to be taking that to new extremes). I honestly think there has been major brain-drain and shift in priorities, what with most of the old hands leaving, cost cutting being rampant, and meddling from the sales department to make the rules fit the ever-increasing pace of plastic toy releases. The people who are left are (maybe) less capable than their predecessors, and certainly have less time and freedom to work on any one project. It's all regurgitated fluff, rehashed rules, and half-baked new concepts to hawk toys.
The sad state of 40k, and GW in general, is that at least back in the day, when they had fewer models to sell and lots of clever and passionate writers, they gave you a lot of rules to make a limited number of figures go a long way. These days it's exactly the opposite - they can't be bothered to give you any kind of real gaming system, but they'll sell you a new plastic toy every other week.
Awesome, awesome post. I still shake my head when certain podcasts hosts use the phrase "forge the narrative" seriously.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/24 18:14:30
CalgarsPimpHand, A perfect summery of the current state of affairs.
In general on the narrative point of view, Rules for Narrative play would be a beautiful addition to this game, if Game Workshop was actually interested in the concept instead of using it as an excuse for poor Rule Writing!
Having ran a few games where I have focused on nothing but a narrative story I will tell you what... they are more fun then anything Game Workshop has put forth to date! This is because you eliminate the whole 'crush your enemy underneath your treads' and replace it with a story that you want your players to see the end of. It allows for much larger maps, creating more then one 'front line' which further encourages the player to look for weak spots and use tactics to break through those lines. Once they do, they are securing objectives that actually make sense and further the narrative being put forth. In particular, these objectives and attacks on the 'front lines' act as good 'triggers' for when reinforcements arrive, when the enemy get orders to change their own positions to counter and/or much more. That is the largest advantage if you ask me, removing the 'omnipresence' that is very heavy in competitive play... if the player moves troops outside of Line-of-Sight to any of your own forces they simply don't respond as if they magically knew the attack was coming!
It is beautiful, and allows for games where small numbers of elite troops are victorious over a much larger enemy... all because they are not piling onto the small elite force simultaneously!
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/07/24 18:34:28
8th made it so I can no longer sway Tau onto the side of Chaos, but they will eventually turn aside from their idea of the Greater Good to embrace the Greatest of pleasures.
Blacksails wrote: If it wants to be a narrative game, then let the player choose what tactical genius their commander is afflicted with that day, or what book the Psyker read that morning. Write a proper campaign system with dozens and dozens of scenarios, some based on in-game fluff, others on general campaign ideas.
What is stopping you from doing exactly this, other than constant posting of GW negativity at DakkaDakka?
For the same reason a life-long Chevy driver who starts posting on the internet about the deteriorating quality of Chevy cars is under no obligation to physically design and build a better Chevy - it isn't our job, and that doesn't stop us from criticizing it, even if we don't buy their products anymore. I admittedly do tinker with rules now and then, but my actual hobby is playing games, so that's what I do, I play games - including old GW games. There are people out there who can and probably will balance GW's games for them for free, and write really nice campaign supplements, but I'm not one of them, and I don't have to be in order to express an opinion.
Battlefleet Gothic ships and markers at my store, GrimDarkBits:
CalgarsPimpHand wrote: (a perfect description of why GW doesn't actually "forge the narrative")
Well said! GW says one thing, then does another. That is one thing I really respect about GW's take on AoS - they are putting their money where their mouth is. You want perfect balance? Find it yourself, because this is a game about superhumans vs monsters! We're selling it based on the quality of the models - not on the rules.
But yes, in 40k everything is built to have "pitched battles" where everything should be even. I love that part of the game. I love having two equally strong forces go at each other and having the better general win. I hugely enjoy the competitive aspect of 40k. But I also love the dynamic, the stories, and the fluff behind it. I can come up with great stuff myself, but I've played this and other games long enough that I have a good idea of how to make campaigns and how to string battles together. Not everyone else will, and if GW wants its players to "forge the narrative", then they totally should re-explore some of these old concepts for 3rd edition!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/24 18:40:42
Galef wrote: If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
I agree with the Papa Smurf's Pimphand. It's really not the job of critics to design something better.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Blacksails wrote: If it wants to be a narrative game, then let the player choose what tactical genius their commander is afflicted with that day, or what book the Psyker read that morning. Write a proper campaign system with dozens and dozens of scenarios, some based on in-game fluff, others on general campaign ideas.
What is stopping you from doing exactly this, other than constant posting of GW negativity at DakkaDakka?
Absolutely nothing, regardless of your preceived constant negative posting on Dakka.
However, any claims that 40k is a narrative game are, well, untrue. If it wanted to be a narrative game out of the box, it would need the right narrative elements.
Also, a game having at least a baseline or guideline for things like narrative gaming or balance is far better for people to tweak with than having to make up something from scratch.
I really enjoy the pot shots at saying anything not nice about GW/40k. Really helps move the discussion along you know. And you know, the irony of being negative yourself to people you think are negative.
*Edit* Yeah and Pimphand nailed it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/24 18:43:26
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress
+Spaceship Gaming Enthusiast+
Live near Halifax, NS? Ask me about our group, the Ordo Haligonias!
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress 
