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.

Mental Surge wrote:


I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.

I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?

Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.

It can hardly become worse. We are already at a local minimum. Codices, supplements, formations, and whatnot. Its not possible to keep the complete overview as it was up to the fifth ed. It needs a restart. Roundtree needs to push the reboot button.

 Blacksails wrote:

Mental Surge wrote:


I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.

I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?

Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.

Facing vehicles. They were nearly impossible to destroy. And yes, before the Necrons got their new codex when they were at a huge disadvantage. This was when the Tau and the Necrons were having a tough time. Vehicles honestly just made me hate playing the game in 5th edition. Even when I played my Tau I had a hard time destroying vehicles. It didn't help that there were several people who I played against that made the lawnmower style IG armies that were nearly impossible to beat.

6th edition was honestly my favorite. And I like 7th edition in practice but obviously there are tons of issues with OP units and formations, allies, etc. From a competitive standpoint I don't have fun at all lol.

I've been playing 40k since 2nd edition came out, off and on. Have played a fair amount of 7th edition in the past 2 years as I've gotten more into tabletop wargaming in general thanks to a great local group I've found. That group has also given me a good deal of exposure to other systems, including WM/H, X-Wing, Star Wars: Armada, Infinity, Bolt Action, Flames of War, Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory (it's a very diverse group of pretty dedicated gamers).

So against that backdrop of a variety of "modern" rules systems, I'll say this about 40k: having experienced what games with good rules for competitive play are like (i.e. X-Wing, WM/H, Infinity), it's clear that 40k is not of the same caliber. If you're looking for a balanced game first and foremost, you'd be better served looking elsewhere.

With that said, because I play other games that scratch my competitive itch, I'm able to approach 40k with a very relaxed attitude. I treat it as a machinima engine for the tabletop, where we're basically just playing out a movie that we watch. Maybe one side wins, maybe the other does, but either way it's going to be fun to watch.

I play footslogging Orks and one of my best buddies in the group plays Imperial Guard, and these two armies are almost made for each other. It's great fun to see 100+ Ork models covering up a table edge and charging at a gunline of Guard tanks. Fistfulls of Orks are removed from the table each turn, but by turn 2-3, the tanks start blowing up as the Boyz glance them to death with dozens of Choppa blows. Often there are dramatic duels between a powerklaw wielding Ork Warboss and a brave-but-doomed IG Company Commander.

It's good fun, we don't take it seriously at all and are totally on the same page with one another in what we want from the game: a cool sci-fi movie played out for our enjoyment via our miniature collections. I feel like I finally understand where GW is coming from with their "forge a narrative" thing, and I've accepted it for what it is.

If you can find someone else with the maturity and larger perspective to approach the game this way, then I think 40k can be a good time. The fluff is fun and compelling. The miniatures look awesome and are very fun to build and paint. But as a competitive / tournament game? Unless there is a complete reboot, I don't see it becoming a viable alternative to the other options out there.

Mental Surge wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Mental Surge wrote:


I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.

I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?

Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.

Facing vehicles. They were nearly impossible to destroy. And yes, before the Necrons got their new codex when they were at a huge disadvantage. This was when the Tau and the Necrons were having a tough time. Vehicles honestly just made me hate playing the game in 5th edition. Even when I played my Tau I had a hard time destroying vehicles. It didn't help that there were several people who I played against that made the lawnmower style IG armies that were nearly impossible to beat.

Vehicles were not hard to kill in 5E, 5E was just the first time non-skimmer vehicle heavy armies were actually viable and not just roadkill, but in general they died just fine (the real issue with vehicles was a handful of dirt cheap transports that could often ignore 5/6 glancing hit results and 3/6 penetrating hit results without issue and still perform their primary transport role). Necrons of the time were built to the spec of an older edition where glancing hits could kill vehicles (as opposed to simply suppressing them) and were insufficiently equipped with heavy AT guns and vehicles themselves, that's an issue with Necron book being built to a 3E standard and GW not updating them in a timely manner, like many other armies have suffered.

Tau were in something of a similar situation, being built very tightly around rules form 3E and 4E that changed with 5E, primarily being heavily reliant on 3E/4E skimmer freebies and LoS blocking area terrain that changed with 5E's much heavier reliance on TLoS. CSM's have very similar issues currently, still wanting to operate like it's 4E or 5E, and as much as I like heaping hate on 7E (because it deserves a lot of hate), most of the issues with CSM's are with GW not adapting the army to the new edition.

Both Tau and Necrons however have been absolutely top tier in every edition in which they've had a codex release, 5E was the only edition where they didn't get a codex release (except Necrons in the last year, where they shot right to the top once they did), along with Eldar. This contrasts with other armies like IG who were only ever top tier for a single edition and have largely been a punching-bag army outside of that.

Zodgrim Dakathug wrote:
I've been playing 40k since 2nd edition came out, off and on. Have played a fair amount of 7th edition in the past 2 years as I've gotten more into tabletop wargaming in general thanks to a great local group I've found. That group has also given me a good deal of exposure to other systems, including WM/H, X-Wing, Star Wars: Armada, Infinity, Bolt Action, Flames of War, Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory (it's a very diverse group of pretty dedicated gamers).

So against that backdrop of a variety of "modern" rules systems, I'll say this about 40k: having experienced what games with good rules for competitive play are like (i.e. X-Wing, WM/H, Infinity), it's clear that 40k is not of the same caliber. If you're looking for a balanced game first and foremost, you'd be better served looking elsewhere.

With that said, because I play other games that scratch my competitive itch, I'm able to approach 40k with a very relaxed attitude. I treat it as a machinima engine for the tabletop, where we're basically just playing out a movie that we watch. Maybe one side wins, maybe the other does, but either way it's going to be fun to watch.

I play footslogging Orks and one of my best buddies in the group plays Imperial Guard, and these two armies are almost made for each other. It's great fun to see 100+ Ork models covering up a table edge and charging at a gunline of Guard tanks. Fistfulls of Orks are removed from the table each turn, but by turn 2-3, the tanks start blowing up as the Boyz glance them to death with dozens of Choppa blows. Often there are dramatic duels between a powerklaw wielding Ork Warboss and a brave-but-doomed IG Company Commander.

It's good fun, we don't take it seriously at all and are totally on the same page with one another in what we want from the game: a cool sci-fi movie played out for our enjoyment via our miniature collections. I feel like I finally understand where GW is coming from with their "forge a narrative" thing, and I've accepted it for what it is.

If you can find someone else with the maturity and larger perspective to approach the game this way, then I think 40k can be a good time. The fluff is fun and compelling. The miniatures look awesome and are very fun to build and paint. But as a competitive / tournament game? Unless there is a complete reboot, I don't see it becoming a viable alternative to the other options out there.

I agree with this. Theres more than one way to approach a game and to assume its all focussed on tournament play is to narrow down what the game is.

I think the game is at a great place in terms of realising a fluffy idea on the tabletop with fewer limitations on what you can take (not trying to shoehorn everything you want into a CAD) and formations and decurions giving buffs to sub optimal units. On the other hand it creates a gigantic gap in terms of effectiveness between those fluffy armies and tournament lists using multiple sources and strong formations to create a deadly list without a single consideration for background or character. Fair play to people who want to play that way but I'd rather just play a computer game if that's how I want to play a game

I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I think the game is at a great place in terms of realising a fluffy idea on the tabletop with fewer limitations on what you can take (not trying to shoehorn everything you want into a CAD) and formations and decurions giving buffs to sub optimal units. On the other hand it creates a gigantic gap in terms of effectiveness between those fluffy armies and tournament lists using multiple sources and strong formations to create a deadly list without a single consideration for background or character. Fair play to people who want to play that way but I'd rather just play a computer game if that's how I want to play a game

I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players

I agree, however I think comp scores should definitely be done before you play. Heck I think it would be ideal to have it done without knowing who your opponent is.

I see a survey sent out before the tournament with a random selection of like 10 lists that you grade for comp or something similar. Easily enough to do with qualtrics or other survey software.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I think the game is at a great place in terms of realising a fluffy idea on the tabletop with fewer limitations on what you can take (not trying to shoehorn everything you want into a CAD) and formations and decurions giving buffs to sub optimal units. On the other hand it creates a gigantic gap in terms of effectiveness between those fluffy armies and tournament lists using multiple sources and strong formations to create a deadly list without a single consideration for background or character. Fair play to people who want to play that way but I'd rather just play a computer game if that's how I want to play a game

I fully agree with this and balance really took a hit to make things fluffy. That said I think the rules writers have some serious bias when it comes to which armies get the fluffy and powerful stuff and which armies get the copy + paste rush job, clunky rules/formations, or needless nerfs.

I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players

Simply put "No". While I want to like the concept of a composition score its just rife with punishing people because somebody didn't like an army list or they are salty from a bad game and thus vote the lowest possible to hurt their score. This happens a lot with sportsmanship scores where the loser will sometimes give the lowest score because they think it will help their own standing or to spite the person who beat them. Also it takes away the scoring from gameplay and instead puts some of the deciding factor into popularity or getting low votes for playing a very meta pick. Also people (who aren't being spiteful or salty) will judge things differently as some will look at how solid a list it is while others will look at things like how well painted it is for the theme of the army or if its fitting the fluff. Only way I would see a score like this working is if its entirely separate and used to decide a "coolest army" ranking for people using really creative armies or theme based lists. Might also work in narrative events as the point is to be fluffy and fun instead of bringing power lists.. (still doesn't stop scatterbike spam as anybody can claim is a Saim-Hann style army )
Edit:

 Leth wrote:

I see a survey sent out before the tournament with a random selection of like 10 lists that you grade for comp or something similar. Easily enough to do with qualtrics or other survey software.

This is a better way to do it but I do feel it would punish armies that people in general dislike such as Tau or Eldar.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:

I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players

Comp doesn't work.

All you are giving is another weapon to the kind of people who would wreck a game anyway. So you score the wraithlord/scatbike list poorly, even if he is an awesome guy to play against. It's just as easy for tfg to give a zero to the fluffy build guy 'because why should I give points to my opponents'?

 Vankraken wrote:

I fully agree with this and balance really took a hit to make things fluffy. That said I think the rules writers have some serious bias when it comes to which armies get the fluffy and powerful stuff and which armies get the copy + paste rush job, clunky rules/formations, or needless nerfs.


Simply put "No". While I want to like the concept of a composition score its just rife with punishing people because somebody didn't like an army list or they are salty from a bad game and thus vote the lowest possible to hurt their score. This happens a lot with sportsmanship scores where the loser will sometimes give the lowest score because they think it will help their own standing or to spite the person who beat them. Also it takes away the scoring from gameplay and instead puts some of the deciding factor into popularity or getting low votes for playing a very meta pick. Also people (who aren't being spiteful or salty) will judge things differently as some will look at how solid a list it is while others will look at things like how well painted it is for the theme of the army or if its fitting the fluff. Only way I would see a score like this working is if its entirely separate and used to decide a "coolest army" ranking for people using really creative armies or theme based lists. Might also work in narrative events as the point is to be fluffy and fun instead of bringing power lists.. (still doesn't stop scatterbike spam as anybody can claim is a Saim-Hann style army )
Edit:

 Leth wrote:

I see a survey sent out before the tournament with a random selection of like 10 lists that you grade for comp or something similar. Easily enough to do with qualtrics or other survey software.

This is a better way to do it but I do feel it would punish armies that people in general dislike such as Tau or Eldar.

Is there a better system than composition scores though? I quite like the Australian comp system I've read about. The counter argument where people say by limiting the top tier stuff all you're doing is making something else the top dog doesn't seem like a very good argument to me, because instead of having a few army builds that are 4x better than the middle of the pack you now get a few builds that are only 2x better, which seems like an objective improvement to me

Anyway, regarding comp, I can see that it does introduce subjective factors and new ways for players to be dicks, but I still think it's a better system than the alternatives. A couple of guys might try to game the system and some people won't get a fair shake when the comp scores come in, but you'd still be more likely to get fun games using fluffy armies. I don't think there's a perfect system at the moment but for me this one is still better than the others

The Saim Hann scat bike army... I see your point but I don't think it gets around the system. If somebody is loading up on MSU scatbike units their opponents will see that and give higher points to the ork horde or Thousand Sons lists they faced.

The idea of rating army lists before the event is interesting and I think it could work too, but lists alone don't tell you how enjoyable the opponent will be to play against or how they're planning to use their psykers. Still, I'd definitely sign up for that kind of event over a no holds barred event where double stormsurge and riptide wing lists are a thing, without question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadnight wrote:

 Snake Tortoise wrote:

I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players

Comp doesn't work.

All you are giving is another weapon to the kind of people who would wreck a game anyway. So you score the wraithlord/scatbike list poorly, even if he is an awesome guy to play against. It's just as easy for tfg to give a zero to the fluffy build guy 'because why should I give points to my opponents'?

I think the idea is you have to give 6 points to one guy, 5 to another, 4 to another etc. all the way down to 1. The optimised eldar list guy might be a nice guy but if you go into that game knowing you've got pretty much no chance of winning why would he get a better comp score than another nice guy but who doesn't bring an overpowered beat stick list? That eldar player will still get good overall points because he won all of his games, but not enough to win best overall because his comp scores brought him down for going in with a big advantage. I don't think that's unfair, it's the whole points of the system. Next time he turns up he might tone down his list if he is trying to win the tournament, how isn't that a net benefit for everyone?

Ive never found comp scores in the traditional sense to work. The best ones ive found generally are those that reward good behavior, not punish for bad. Stuff like giving people favorite opponent tickets for raffles or factoring in how much a player was voted favorite opponent into "best overall" standing seem to be less prone to gimmicks and give people a sense of achievement and work much better at promoting friendly play than strict comp rules and opponent rating.

That said, I'm not really sure there's a good way to manage 7E without significant restrictions on army construction for events, as even many fluffy builds played by fun people can be horrifically broken and nigh autowin against many of their opponents 7

 Vaktathi wrote:

Mental Surge wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Mental Surge wrote:


I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.

I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?

Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.

Facing vehicles. They were nearly impossible to destroy. And yes, before the Necrons got their new codex when they were at a huge disadvantage. This was when the Tau and the Necrons were having a tough time. Vehicles honestly just made me hate playing the game in 5th edition. Even when I played my Tau I had a hard time destroying vehicles. It didn't help that there were several people who I played against that made the lawnmower style IG armies that were nearly impossible to beat.

Vehicles were not hard to kill in 5E, 5E was just the first time non-skimmer vehicle heavy armies were actually viable and not just roadkill, but in general they died just fine (the real issue with vehicles was a handful of dirt cheap transports that could often ignore 5/6 glancing hit results and 3/6 penetrating hit results without issue and still perform their primary transport role). Necrons of the time were built to the spec of an older edition where glancing hits could kill vehicles (as opposed to simply suppressing them) and were insufficiently equipped with heavy AT guns and vehicles themselves, that's an issue with Necron book being built to a 3E standard and GW not updating them in a timely manner, like many other armies have suffered.

Tau were in something of a similar situation, being built very tightly around rules form 3E and 4E that changed with 5E, primarily being heavily reliant on 3E/4E skimmer freebies and LoS blocking area terrain that changed with 5E's much heavier reliance on TLoS. CSM's have very similar issues currently, still wanting to operate like it's 4E or 5E, and as much as I like heaping hate on 7E (because it deserves a lot of hate), most of the issues with CSM's are with GW not adapting the army to the new edition.

Both Tau and Necrons however have been absolutely top tier in every edition in which they've had a codex release, 5E was the only edition where they didn't get a codex release (except Necrons in the last year, where they shot right to the top once they did), along with Eldar. This contrasts with other armies like IG who were only ever top tier for a single edition and have largely been a punching-bag army outside of that.

No, they were next to impossible to destroy with necrons. Necrons almost exclusively relied on glancing vehicles to death, but that was absurdly hard to do in fifth, on top of that, you needed lots of useless warriors of phase out. Necrons were by far the worst army in fifth before they got their new codex.

Even with Tau I had trouble destroying vehicles. They would just get immobilized, stunned, stunned, shaken, etc. I hated fiftth edition. And everyone had tons of vehicles in fifth edition. Absolutely hated it.

Mental Surge wrote:

No, they were next to impossible to destroy with necrons. Necrons almost exclusively relied on glancing vehicles to death, but that was absurdly hard to do in fifth, on top of that, you needed lots of useless warriors of phase out. Necrons were by far the worst army in fifth before they got their new codex.

Even with Tau I had trouble destroying vehicles. They would just get immobilized, stunned, stunned, shaken, etc. I hated fiftth edition. And everyone had tons of vehicles in fifth edition. Absolutely hated it.

But Necrons had their 5e codex, eventually, and it was even too good.

And all of this, is still better of what we have now. Anti tank weapons are not the best anti-tank. This is a problem that goes beyond balance, is immersion killing. And the game is supposed to be mainly narrative?

If the vehicles were too difficult to kill, would have been enough to tweak the rules with what we have now with the bonus to the roll due to AP, and/or a different table. The same with assault.
The problem with GW is that they tend to over-fix stuff.

I think the eat if system would be fine because it's not that people have problems with eldar and tau per say, it is certain things within those books.

Someone is gonna get a much higher rank if they bring a bunch of fire warriors, an ethereal and a rip tide or two.

Eldar player with avatar, guardians, and a wraithknight? That should get through the system just fine.

Bring a themed or cool army and people will want to play against it and should have a better time.

I have skimmed through this thread to read a bit of what everyone seems to think and can basically see two sides
Oh its not that bad
and
Omg 40k is mess jump ship.

I have been playing since I was 13 and got started in early 4th late 3rd. The game was fairly simple but rigid when compared to the modern rules. The idea of allies was fairly unheard of so if your codex was underpowered in those days you could not boost it with another army you simply had to build a new army or spam what was best. the biggest units you could have where land raiders or monoliths. 5th was more or less the same as 4th some improvement here and there but nothing ground breaking. Back then if a army was op it was harder to counter it due to the lack of allies.

Then 6th comes out. You can ally some armies unless your nids. This opened more options which is always a good thing. in 7th formations became a thing somewere powerful but some were just meh Most armies seemed to start getting a way to get some type of super heavy lord of war wither from allies or in their on book. Overall 7th is great if you want freedom to build a army anyway you want. which can be good or bite you in the rear depending on what you do. The poor nids kinda got the short stick seeing as they cant ally and are falling behind more than likely they will not get a new book till 8th rolls out . The rules are very much on a whole new lvl when compared to 4th or 5th. You use to have 2 or 3 books at most that was your Core rule book and your codex maybe the odd or end supplement but those seemed to be much rarer back then. Now you can come to the table with a army that takes 3-5 books. You Have a great amount of options and this can get you in a pickle if you decide to take space marines with the angels of death supplement with a detachment of space wolves admech and IG. As far as the hobby side this is a great time to be in 40k. So Many new models are coming out and most of them look great. more new armies and codexes have come out in this edition than ever before but Some times the amount of rule interaction can be a bit overwhelming and make a mess.


So in short the current state of 40k is

It can be as bloated as you let it be. House rules are sometimes needed but this is nothing new. You dont need a super heavy but just have enough anti tank and anti Monstrous Creature to deal with them. depends on your local meta. if you dont know if you want to jump in head first look into the new kill team rule set. It might be something to break the ice with and test the waters before coming back in whole hog. also 8th ed rumored for in Q2 of 2017 it should clean up some things.

Mental Surge wrote:

No, they were next to impossible to destroy with necrons. Necrons almost exclusively relied on glancing vehicles to death, but that was absurdly hard to do in fifth, on top of that, you needed lots of useless warriors of phase out. Necrons were by far the worst army in fifth before they got their new codex.

Right, and I explained what the issue was there, they were built around mechanics from an older edition. That wasn't an issue with 5E, it was an issue with Necrons playing 5E with a 3E codex. Once they got their 5E book, they had zero issues, and they've stayed at the top of the power rankings since then.

Even with Tau I had trouble destroying vehicles. They would just get immobilized, stunned, stunned, shaken, etc.

Tau shouldn't have had issues killing vehicles in 5th between S10 AP1 railguns (especially when Broadsides were still S10 and you could have nine 72" range Twin Linked S10 AP1 guns on the field, extremely potent at the time), gobs of deep striking melta, markerlights, and constant "always on" 4+ cover saves on their own vehicles thanks to disruption pods. Tau's issue more often was dealing with assaults as you could assault from stationary transports, out of Outflank, etc and they had no Overwatch. That was my biggest challenge with my Tau in 5th, not killing tanks.

I hated fiftth edition. And everyone had tons of vehicles in fifth edition. Absolutely hated it.

Well, ok, but again, you have to realize that both of these armies were built very tightly to core rules of older editions and faults with them weren't necessarily problems with the core rules but rather the fact that they simply were built to a different standard.

On the flip side, did you ever see a mechanized non-skimmer army in 4th or 6th do anything but get crippled and break in the first two turns? Probably not. 5E was the only edition where vehicles didn't have an absurd skimmer vs non-skimmer gap, and where, at least for armies with 5E codex books (as opposed to 3E or 4E books like Necrons and Tau), killing tanks wasn't really a problem.

white_wolf wrote:
I have skimmed through this thread to read a bit of what everyone seems to think and can basically see two sides
Oh its not that bad
and
Omg 40k is mess jump ship.

I have been playing since I was 13 and got started in early 4th late 3rd. The game was fairly simple but rigid when compared to the modern rules. The idea of allies was fairly unheard of so if your codex was underpowered in those days you could not boost it with another army you simply had to build a new army or spam what was best. the biggest units you could have where land raiders or monoliths. 5th was more or less the same as 4th some improvement here and there but nothing ground breaking. Back then if a army was op it was harder to counter it due to the lack of allies.

Then 6th comes out. You can ally some armies unless your nids. This opened more options which is always a good thing. in 7th formations became a thing somewere powerful but some were just meh Most armies seemed to start getting a way to get some type of super heavy lord of war wither from allies or in their on book. Overall 7th is great if you want freedom to build a army anyway you want. which can be good or bite you in the rear depending on what you do. The poor nids kinda got the short stick seeing as they cant ally and are falling behind more than likely they will not get a new book till 8th rolls out . The rules are very much on a whole new lvl when compared to 4th or 5th. You use to have 2 or 3 books at most that was your Core rule book and your codex maybe the odd or end supplement but those seemed to be much rarer back then. Now you can come to the table with a army that takes 3-5 books. You Have a great amount of options and this can get you in a pickle if you decide to take space marines with the angels of death supplement with a detachment of space wolves admech and IG. As far as the hobby side this is a great time to be in 40k. So Many new models are coming out and most of them look great. more new armies and codexes have come out in this edition than ever before but Some times the amount of rule interaction can be a bit overwhelming and make a mess.


So in short the current state of 40k is

It can be as bloated as you let it be. House rules are sometimes needed but this is nothing new. You dont need a super heavy but just have enough anti tank and anti Monstrous Creature to deal with them. depends on your local meta. if you dont know if you want to jump in head first look into the new kill team rule set. It might be something to break the ice with and test the waters before coming back in whole hog. also 8th ed rumored for in Q2 of 2017 it should clean up some things.

This is the response I was looking for. As someone just getting into the hobby(bought my first box of troops last night) this thread scared me. This thread seemed like a mix of people saying it's great and the other half super salty. This is what I wanted to find.

A good TL;DR is that if you have a good circle of like minded gaming pals that are willing to play with lots of self imposed restrictions (implicite or explicit) and typically lots of house rules, then you can make the game work and have fun (though at that point you can play *any* edition and have fun).

If you don't have a tight knit circle of like minded gaming pals, and are reliant on pickup games or arranged games with people with a different outlook on the game or store events like leagues or tournaments for play time, the game is an unholy mess that should probably be avoided in favor of a different game.

TheLumberJack wrote:

white_wolf wrote:
I have skimmed through this thread to read a bit of what everyone seems to think and can basically see two sides
Oh its not that bad
and
Omg 40k is mess jump ship.

I have been playing since I was 13 and got started in early 4th late 3rd. The game was fairly simple but rigid when compared to the modern rules. The idea of allies was fairly unheard of so if your codex was underpowered in those days you could not boost it with another army you simply had to build a new army or spam what was best. the biggest units you could have where land raiders or monoliths. 5th was more or less the same as 4th some improvement here and there but nothing ground breaking. Back then if a army was op it was harder to counter it due to the lack of allies.

Then 6th comes out. You can ally some armies unless your nids. This opened more options which is always a good thing. in 7th formations became a thing somewere powerful but some were just meh Most armies seemed to start getting a way to get some type of super heavy lord of war wither from allies or in their on book. Overall 7th is great if you want freedom to build a army anyway you want. which can be good or bite you in the rear depending on what you do. The poor nids kinda got the short stick seeing as they cant ally and are falling behind more than likely they will not get a new book till 8th rolls out . The rules are very much on a whole new lvl when compared to 4th or 5th. You use to have 2 or 3 books at most that was your Core rule book and your codex maybe the odd or end supplement but those seemed to be much rarer back then. Now you can come to the table with a army that takes 3-5 books. You Have a great amount of options and this can get you in a pickle if you decide to take space marines with the angels of death supplement with a detachment of space wolves admech and IG. As far as the hobby side this is a great time to be in 40k. So Many new models are coming out and most of them look great. more new armies and codexes have come out in this edition than ever before but Some times the amount of rule interaction can be a bit overwhelming and make a mess.


So in short the current state of 40k is

It can be as bloated as you let it be. House rules are sometimes needed but this is nothing new. You dont need a super heavy but just have enough anti tank and anti Monstrous Creature to deal with them. depends on your local meta. if you dont know if you want to jump in head first look into the new kill team rule set. It might be something to break the ice with and test the waters before coming back in whole hog. also 8th ed rumored for in Q2 of 2017 it should clean up some things.

This is the response I was looking for. As someone just getting into the hobby(bought my first box of troops last night) this thread scared me. This thread seemed like a mix of people saying it's great and the other half super salty. This is what I wanted to find.

Welcome to the game, LumberJack! As another new player (I bought my first kit less than a year ago), I can tell you that the game is far from perfect, but as long as you have a good local meta and don't take the game too seriously, you will have fun.

I've never played in a tourny so maybe I don't have that perspective, but I've never had too much of a problem with the rules.

Small groups are best, we never bring super OP lists unless it's agreed upon beforehand. We bring fun lists with little used units and have a blast.

I'm just restating what a lot of people are saying here, but I've never understood where all the salt comes from. I get that it's not the most intuitive game, but the basics are fairly easy to learn, and the rest comes with time.

Everything is what you make of it. I've loved the game and the hobby since I was 13, and I've seen change after change, but they never bother me.

I say "oh well" and keep playing, because we make it fun. Don't even need that many house rules.

Best solution to events I've seen at a FLGS is to completely eliminate the win/lose element. Instead players won on sportsmanship, painting, and other soft scores. Essentially no TFG player or lists can win or will likely show. Instead the event turns into a great day of getting 3 great games in and you win by having you and your opponent enjoying yourselves all game.

 buddha wrote:
Best solution to events I've seen at a FLGS is to completely eliminate the win/lose element. Instead players won on sportsmanship, painting, and other soft scores. Essentially no TFG player or lists can win or will likely show. Instead the event turns into a great day of getting 3 great games in and you win by having you and your opponent enjoying yourselves all game.

*The best solution for people looking for that kind of gaming.

Frankly, I'd probably avoid a tournament like that, as the people who would attend it would have different ideas of what constitutes fun than myself. I enjoy competition, not at the expense of anything else, but a close match between two people giving a good show is really important to my enjoyment. With that comes my appreciation of people bringing strong lists, and my time spent tweaking and playing with different elements to find the best list for me.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, I'm not really sure there's a good way to manage 7E without significant restrictions on army construction for events, as even many fluffy builds played by fun people can be horrifically broken and nigh autowin against many of their opponents 7

Agree 100%


The factions/codex's will never be balanced but even just exhuming our old pal the foc from its eternal resting place and chloroforming and dismembering formations with a chainsaw with a subsequent bath in cement and a trip out to sea, I think game gets objectively better. A polished turd is better than nothing

 Vaktathi wrote:
A good TL;DR is that if you have a good circle of like minded gaming pals that are willing to play with lots of self imposed restrictions (implicite or explicit) and typically lots of house rules, then you can make the game work and have fun (though at that point you can play *any* edition and have fun).

If you don't have a tight knit circle of like minded gaming pals, and are reliant on pickup games or arranged games with people with a different outlook on the game or store events like leagues or tournaments for play time, the game is an unholy mess that should probably be avoided in favor of a different game.

I know the feeling man, I'm lucky to have some regular opponents who share my mindset for the game, without it a lot of pickup games feel like bad internet dating. Sadly the pool of like minded individuals really dropped post 5th. I feel like we used to pay for a game and now it's a sandbox lined with very expensive poop with an ever expanding horizon.

 Blacksails wrote:

 buddha wrote:
Best solution to events I've seen at a FLGS is to completely eliminate the win/lose element. Instead players won on sportsmanship, painting, and other soft scores. Essentially no TFG player or lists can win or will likely show. Instead the event turns into a great day of getting 3 great games in and you win by having you and your opponent enjoying yourselves all game.

*The best solution for people looking for that kind of gaming.

Frankly, I'd probably avoid a tournament like that, as the people who would attend it would have different ideas of what constitutes fun than myself.

Ditto. Soft scores make you soft


Also, 3 games is a no go for me. 4 or nothing.

A lot of this comes down to people having a different idea of what constitutes fun.

white_wolf, have an exalt for being the realistic optimist in the room of pessimists.

My overall opinion is pretty much the same - hence why I avoid playing the uber-competative tournaments.

It really all depends on your gaming group.

The introduction of allies and formations have opened the door for some serious rules abuses. That, however, is the key point. It has just made extreme rules abuse an option, not the norm.

Now I can't speak for all the communities across the hobby but it depends on the person. Personally I play with formations where I feel like it would be fun but sometimes just go for a CAD, even then I'll try and keep it fluffy with full 10 man tactical units in rhinos and maybe the 1st company task force in support with small 5 man veteran teams and i will only field one formation at a time. That in itself isnt a problem as I'll play people with similar lists in great games. The point is the formations as i see them should be used for a narrative reason and not for the sheer OP'ness of them.

That's where I feel some people miss the point. For example my last 2 games.

1st game of the week, my marines versus orks. I took 2 full tactical squads in rhinos with scouts out front who'd been the advance element and a first company task force of 2 5 man terminator squads and a 5 man sternguard squad. So a small elite force trying to stand against a green tide of over 100 ork boys a unit of tank bustas and a mekboy ambushing my marines. The 1st compaby task force game me that little extra push to stem the tide of orks but nearly 2 thirds of my army had been chopped down by the time the game ended in a narrow marine victory.

Fast forward two days and the same force with a few small tweaks in weapons choices etc turned up to a different gaming night and faced serious issues. My opponent ran a CAD with 2 bare bones 5 man tactical teams with a chapter master with command squad all on bikes with numerous upgrades. That deployed with a librarius conclave on bikes and then a turn 1 skyhammer annihilation force with grav spam. I might have well been asked to pack up there and then. I either focused on the invisible, iron armed, jinking, feel no pain wielding bikestar or the first turn, relentless, pinning, drop pod assaulting skyhammer units... either way the other formation would hammer me.

The first game the formation gave the game a bit of extra excitement adding to the experience while in the second game it made it dull as a foregone conclusion for both side because one party has the much maligned waac mentality.

My point is that I've seen many people complain that formations and a few other things have broken the game but i dont believe this to be the case as what it really is is the issue of some players using those things that are powerful in and of themselves in layers to create something which gaks all over their opponents so they dont have to grow and learn the hard way how to lose with honour and go away and adapt tactically to better leverage their resources. Instead they want a reliable fire and forget weapon, something they dont really want to work hard with to make effective, rather a list they can just point at the enemy every game they play become a rinse and repeat.

Maybe its just me but it seems to be an attitude which pervades society as a whole. I just feel fortunate that this is something that i have only come across a couple of times since i bcame back to gaming 6 months ago and a number of people in my gaming group similarly to myself have an active interest in history from which we draw leasons utilising strategies from wars fought in antiquity through the ages to the 20th and 21st centuries.

The key is to try and get people you know involved and create yohr own if not find a like minded group of gamers, people who love the lore and appreciate the things about the universe that you do will most likely have the same approach to the tabletop you do and will help you grow much more than those who just see yoh as a statistic to add to their win-loss record.

Pr3Mu5 wrote:
The introduction of allies and formations have opened the door for some serious rules abuses. That, however, is the key point. It has just made extreme rules abuse an option, not the norm.

Just making formations an option made it the norm. Creating terrible incentives and a race to the bottom is a hell of a thing to put on the player base and not the inept company treating a rule set like a dying neglected parent in a convalescent home.

We're all in agreement the game functions best with like minded opponents, I would proffer the game worked EVEN BETTER pre 6th edition because one didn't need to find their soul mate just to enjoy a game. To me this reads as if the government mandated everyone not lock their homes, theft spikes massively as it's never been easier to break in and steal things and instead of the government reverting back to allowing lockable homes they go on some diatribe about human nature and just finding the right neighbourhood. The gamers didn't create this mess. GW did.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Pr3Mu5 wrote:
The introduction of allies and formations have opened the door for some serious rules abuses. That, however, is the key point. It has just made extreme rules abuse an option, not the norm.

Just making formations an option made it the norm. Creating terrible incentives and a race to the bottom is a hell of a thing to put on the player base and not the inept company treating a rule set like a dying neglected parent in a convalescent home.

We're all in agreement the game functions best with like minded opponents, I would proffer the game worked EVEN BETTER pre 6th edition because one didn't need to find their soul mate just to enjoy a game. To me this reads as if the government mandated everyone not lock their homes, theft spikes massively as it's never been easier to break in and steal things and instead of the government reverting back to allowing lockable homes they go on some diatribe about human nature and just finding the right neighbourhood. The gamers didn't create this mess. GW did.

I'm sorry I've not made myself completely clear. Im not saying that its all down to the player base. Part of the issue is definitely that GW made a ruleset which was very easily exploited and has compounded the issue repeatedly through codices and suppliments.

The point I was trying to convey is that I would hold some sections of the tabletop community equally responsible. Not all of them and not all equally.

To use your analogy if the government banned the locking of doors the people who are prone to armed burglary will have a field day. Beyond that, there will be a proliferation of their kind but also a tendancy for those who feel threatened by the prospect of armed assault to fight fire with fire. A section of the population who would not normally dream of the use of firearms against another person will take up arms in defence of their life and property. Their position is defensible but it shouldn't have to be.

Basically formations and the likes can be used for a great game but some people abuse it. I wouldn't assume why GW introduced them but I would hope it'd be for the benefit of the game rather than to boost sales of certain models. I mean it's GW so who knows. I think we can all agree though that no matter how well intentioned it may have been it has definitely backfired and needs resolving. To say the community didn't create the problem is kind of disingenuous, as I've said I don't hold everyone equally responsible but the fact that some of us have resisted the pressure to play catch up with the power gamers shows that it doesn'thave to be that way. Yes the rules should be updated to remove the potential for exploitation but the community should be putting those that want to do the exploiting. There's already a couple of people I have decided I wont play going forward, especially if I field my sisters, and I'm not the only one. I just feel sorry for those who only have accessto a group where the waac mentality has taken root.

I think the purpose of your gaming group should be for the benefit of all involved and to help everyone there have fun. As I have said I use formations and dont mind others doing so until it starts to become obvious cheddar. If I wanted a hobby that ate away at my bank balance like this one does without having fun I'd have bought a season ticket at Old Trafford.

I've been playing 40K since 3rd edition, and in all that time the game has never been even remotely balanced. There have always been huge gaps between the top tier armies and the bottom tier armies. There have also always been huge gaps between what is thematic, fluffy, and flavorful for any particular faction, and what gives the most bang for the points on the tabletop.

6+ Edition has cranked the balance problem up to 11 with the additions of flyers, superheavies/GMCs, and the Allies rules. The first two make it nigh-unto-impossible to build a take all comers list anymore, and the Allies rules open up a huge avenue for abuse, allowing WAAC players to exploit unintended synergies between various armies.

What it all amounts to is you basically can't just go down to a LGS and go trolling for pickup games and expect to reliably get a good result. You're apt to either get smacked down by some tourney champ tryhard wannabe with their netlist of the month, or you're going to roll some poor kid whose army is built around the contents of the Battle for Vedros box set. Neither makes for a very satisfying experience.

In order to make 40K an enjoyable game, you need an environment where everyone is on the same page. You need to either establish what the ground rules for the game are going to be enough in advance for both/all players to bring appropriate models to the tabletop, or you need house rules to curb the excesses the current edition enables.

That said, I've been enjoying 40K more the last few years than I have since I started playing. I put that down to lucking into a group that accepts a common set of house rules. I'll list them below in case anyone wants to try something similar. I don't think the particulars of the house rules are as important as having a set everyone abides by, but these have worked very well for us.

1: No Allies
2: 40% Troops minimum*
3: Psykers can't use power dice from other psykers, only their own and those generated by the Harness the Warp roll at the beginning of the Psychic Phase.

*A note on the 40% Troops minimum: Someone always brings up Scatbikes. We do have Eldar players, but they don't meet their compulsory Troops requirement by spamming Scatbikes. If they did, I'd put an addendum to the rule stating that WIndrider Jetbikes and any units that can become Troops through FOC swapping (looking at you, Space Marine Bike Squadrons) can be taken as Troops, but cannot be compulsory Troops.