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It just seems that vehicles (landraiders etc) take away a lot of the coolness of certain factions in favour of drive bys and joy rides. Especially when that's pretty much the only viable strategy for those factions.

Am I the only one who prefers my guys outside metal bawkses?

As an imperial guard player, no. But I do see the merit in changing it up a bit. And I do like the tactical difficulties in using a less mobile force.

On a side note, I was once part of a game where we used nothing but vehicles and it was one of the most fun games I have ever played.

I'm torn. I like both really. I don't like vehicles dominating the game and making infantry pointless. On the other hand having only infantry wouldn't feel right either. I wish the game did a better job of making weapons and units less dual purpose so antitank options would function poorly against troops due to lack of volume of fire, but could still be effective against tanks.

Very tricky to balance the game so all or majority vehicle army is as viable, but but more viable than all or majority troops. I would like to see the core rules limit vehicle spam (and super heavies and flyers for that matter) and then have a supplement (40k Armor Battles or something along those lines) that gives options for vehicle centric games. The supplement could introduce new force organization options, new vehicle options and new antitank infantry options for each faction. Then players can choose to play standard 40k with limited vehicles or armored 40k with the understanding that vehicles will likely be more prominent allowing for more appropriate list building. Then have supplement Air Support to add flyers and supplement Super Heavies for those. Players choose combinations of supplements to suit the game style they want to play.

The biggest problem with having no vehicles is that some army's units are really, really weak on foot.
Space Marines on foot. Yes.
Dark Eldar Wyches. No way.

100% Vehicles frequently? Crappy.
0% Vehicles frequently? Also suboptimal.

Once more, moderation in all things is key.

I play without vehicles when I play my GF as it is far easier to teach the rules without vehicles and flyers/FMCs. And tbh, it is really fun. Although it is 1k pts max - couldn't imagine large battles without vehicles. I have only played 3 battles with her so far but intend to stick to infantry/MC only for at least 2 or 3 more games.
The armies we have used include BA, Necrons, Renegades and CSM. Not sure how others fare.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
As an imperial guard player, no. But I do see the merit in changing it up a bit. And I do like the tactical difficulties in using a less mobile force.

On a side note, I was once part of a game where we used nothing but vehicles and it was one of the most fun games I have ever played.

I mean, Imperial Guard is one of the few forces who should have quite a few vehicles.

It's just a matter of when a standard SM force is every single space marine in a Rhino driving around shooting out.

I play a game of mostly non vehicles anyways... my 1850 competitve list has 4 WK's and only 1 (obligatory) vyper.

I've toyed with the idea of running a campaign focused around footsloggers. It wouldn't be completely without vehicles, but each army would only be allowed a small number, and with the idea of choosing those that complement the infantry, rather than replacing them.

Balance would be an issue, but figuring that out is part of the fun of it!

Try playing with Zone Mortalis rules on denser terrain tables? Vehicles are limited to walkers and smaller skimmery things, and most fast stuff takes dangerous checks on everything (bikes). FOC is slightly different and has less FA/HS slots. Pretty easy to plug and play with any of the normal missions, or use the ones listed (and some cool stratagems!). You don't need a 5000$ corridor table to play ZM, just more stuff on the table.
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/z/ZM6thUpdate.pdf

I too have been craving some more infantry focused 40k games. I've got too many cool terminators and veteran type marines gathering dust because they're not great in the kind of regular pitched battles.

 toasteroven wrote:
I've toyed with the idea of running a campaign focused around footsloggers. It wouldn't be completely without vehicles, but each army would only be allowed a small number, and with the idea of choosing those that complement the infantry, rather than replacing them.

Balance would be an issue, but figuring that out is part of the fun of it!

My army couldn't participate in that campaign.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
I've toyed with the idea of running a campaign focused around footsloggers. It wouldn't be completely without vehicles, but each army would only be allowed a small number, and with the idea of choosing those that complement the infantry, rather than replacing them.

Balance would be an issue, but figuring that out is part of the fun of it!

My army couldn't participate in that campaign.

Yeah, it wouldn't work for everyone, unfortunately. The main players I know right now are Ork, Space Marine, and Imperial Guard, though, so that's kind of driven my thinking. The idea is to make it balanced and keep the numbers small and infantry based, but still allow for some variety in army makeup.

 toasteroven wrote:
I've toyed with the idea of running a campaign focused around footsloggers. It wouldn't be completely without vehicles, but each army would only be allowed a small number, and with the idea of choosing those that complement the infantry, rather than replacing them.

Balance would be an issue, but figuring that out is part of the fun of it!

There's always Heralds of Ruin Kill Team.

Small skirmish games it would be perfectly alright.
Play it a bit like the Inquisitor game or Necromunda.
I am sure it will play just fine.

As soon as it gets past 2 squads, it will seem very strange.
Bolt Action allows for a couple vehicles in it's squad games and they do add some interesting elements.

Vehicles tend to then translate into heavier more preferred firepower.
Trying to get the focus back on troops, the characters you can identify with is probably the "cooler" element you are looking for.

Try getting away from the "open field" warfare, try some scenarios, maybe a full ruined city-scape, couple squads in a space hulk, find something to remove the focus on vehicles if they seem to interfere with the fun.

Good luck.

 RexInvictus wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
I've toyed with the idea of running a campaign focused around footsloggers. It wouldn't be completely without vehicles, but each army would only be allowed a small number, and with the idea of choosing those that complement the infantry, rather than replacing them.

Balance would be an issue, but figuring that out is part of the fun of it!

There's always Heralds of Ruin Kill Team.

And that's a lot of fun, but I was thinking something slightly bigger.

No it is not

MoO diehard Treadhead and Imperial Guard player.

super heavys imo make the game suck. Also knights and similar large monsters.

The various scale imo is the most attractive. For example...

Space marines and termies are dif sizes and then there are small large and medium size armor like rhinos, land raiders, and dreads

When I see armys with varying sizes of models it is always the coolest to me personally. Seeing spam of the same type is boring and seeing vastly smaller models next to giant models is awful such as a wraithknight host next to a bunch of wraithknights. Why would a ground force of foot soldiers be somehow viable on a field where building size titans are walking....

See, I like armies, and armies (at least at the platoon/squad/company level) tend to have a bunch of the same thing. It's not called a Tank Company because it's 1/3 tanks, 1/3 infantry, and 1/3 aircraft.

Vehicles is why I played 40K. To tell the truth, its the only reason I play 40K. If I wanted to just play with guys who just have boots on the ground there are many better game systems with just as interesting models out there to choose from.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Vehicles is why I played 40K. To tell the truth, its the only reason I play 40K. If I wanted to just play with guys who just have boots on the ground there are many better game systems with just as interesting models out there to choose from.

This, pretty much. I don't know if I would have ever gotten into 40k at all if it weren't for the vehicle kits.

Vehicles is why I played 40K. To tell the truth, its the only reason I play 40K. If I wanted to just play with guys who just have boots on the ground there are many better game systems with just as interesting models out there to choose from.



This, pretty much. I don't know if I would have ever gotten into 40k at all if it weren't for the vehicle kits.

+1 here too. Absolutely love seeing vehicles pound each other across the table whilst foot sloggers duck into ruins. I was very anti flyer when they first came out but even they have grown on me considerably.

Heheheh. Yes no vehicless for Tau. *in jumps a million battlesuits and a Riptide).

They aren't vehicles.

 RexInvictus wrote:
It just seems that vehicles (landraiders etc) take away a lot of the coolness of certain factions in favour of drive bys and joy rides. Especially when that's pretty much the only viable strategy for those factions.

Am I the only one who prefers my guys outside metal bawkses?

I know exactly what you mean. In fact, what really made me want to start IG was seeing some battle reports by someone who used lists with virtually no vehicles. Sadly, that was back in 5th, and the game has moved on.

The problem is, some armies are just so much better without vehicles than others. Compare footsloging Necrons (who still have Wraiths and Destroyers), to footslogging guard - with their useless flashlights, or to footslogging Dark Eldar - who've just lost their only advantage (speed).

I think that if you want a predominantly footslogging game, you'd have to consider a different edition (possibly 5th), and also consider making some allowances for vehicles (Dark Eldar in particular really need some transports).

Regardless, as someone who really hates parking-lot armies, I certainly applaud any steps towards footslogging and infantry-heavy armies and I wish you the best of luck with this endeavour.

No. I like Tau vehicles' aesthetics a lot.

Now, a game without (G)(F)MCs - that is much more manageable

 Vector Strike wrote:

Now, a game without (G)(F)MCs - that is much more manageable

Are you talking about a game without gargantuan or flying MCs, or a game without any MCs?

I like scaling vehicles. Turning up with Imperial Knights to a 1000pt game is not fun, though a few AP11s, dreadnoughts, a razorback or two, maybe a whirlwind... the game is richer for it because it broadens the game without making it hopeless to take out something like an Imperial Knight.

I'm stuck on this as on one hand yes it would be cool to play a pure infantry game but I need my metal boxes to get across the board so I can rack up blood tithe. ..

I wish imperial vehicles didn't always look like ww1 tanks and flying sneakers. Clearly the Adeptus Mechanicus are capable of producing cooler-looking designs, but they keep them all to themselves.

Vehicles are awesome. Tanks make me happy.

Also, without vehicles, IG would only really have Troops, HQ, and Elites, with no HS and only one non-vehicle FA choice, and most of the army's unique capabilities would not be able to be used.

Haruspex wrote:
I wish imperial vehicles didn't always look like ww1 tanks and flying sneakers. Clearly the Adeptus Mechanicus are capable of producing cooler-looking designs, but they keep them all to themselves.

One has to remember that 40k started as something of a steampunk-ish setting, the WW1 vibe fits that really well. There's been some move away from it, but it's still part of the core aesthetic of the game universe, drawing lots of inspiration from things like the 1980's animated flick "Heavy Metal" and various fantasy settings. That said, they've also toned a lot of that down in recent releases to fit a more "scifi" and "Blizzard"-ey feel.

I can see why nothing but vehicles would get boring/obnoxious, but only having armies footslog really penalizes certain armies (Dark Eldar, IG)

Personally, I favor a combined arms approach where I have a good mix of infantry and vehicles.