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I attended a local Con this weekend that had a 40K tournament, at 1850 pts. After witnessing the armies duking it out on the battlefield, I'm very glad I didn't get involved in it.

While I imagine the folks playing had fun (or they wouldn't be doing it), the scope of things on the battlefield was personally, a turn-off. I remember one army fielding a Warhound Titan; another was fielding nothing but Tau Riptides (plus a couple Forgeworld variants I wasn't falimiar with); the funniest was the 5-man "Hello Kitty" Knight formation. Another person was running some sort of IG-Genestealer cult with a dozen or so Earthshaker batteries (?!?). A few others were either running drop pod marine lists (5 man squads per pod, about a dozen pods) or Eldar scatbikes (that somehow appeared to be arriving by Deep Strike) - backed up by a Wraithknight.

Looking at the games going on, I now understand why everyone hates regular infantry - the game has turned into a tankfest. It's like Epic in 28mm scale, and with the armies I own and play at home (which are primarily infantry, with 1-2 transports and 1 tank at best), I wouldn't stand a chance against them.

When did this shift to titan-scale armies occur? Has it been due to the points level? Is it because of the release of larger kits? Is it the rules pushing for this sort of upscaled game?

Well its just a biproduct of the hobbie being around for so long, after some what, 30 years? people amass armies quickly.

If GW does not make the shift to small elite armies at large point costs, IE knights, people wont want to get into the hobbie. Thats what happened to fantasy, in order to get into the hobby and play at normal game level you needed to drop 600+ bucks on an army.

This is the result of that same effect but mitigated. You can get into 1850 games, for around 300 bucks if you are running knights or elites.

It's the result of the malignant tumors originating from 6th edition known as escalation and formations.

People like to use more of their toys.

That's the strange thing - I've been collecting 40K models since Rogue Trader days, and have about 6 or so full armies, but nothing to the extent these folks were trotting out. Of course, I tend to be a "one of everything" kind of guy; I don't have multiple copies of anything "bigger" than a Land Raider, and at best about 3 rhinos/chimeras to my collection.

 King Pariah wrote:
It's the result of the malignant tumors originating from 6th edition known as escalation and formations.

This as well, i appreciate what formation SHOULD be there for, "Fluffy armies", but they are not and end up getting abused.


Honestly there was no reason to do away with the CAD, and HQs that turned specific unites into troops verse elites.

IE being able to run a deathwing troop army.

The shift of accepting more of the big stuff that was previously relegated to things like apocalypse games really started in 6th.

40k still plays fine at the old levels, you just need to be sure you are on the same page of the type of game you want to play with your opponent. The biggest problem I have with 40k these days is that it’s trying to be everything from kill team skirmish to titan scaled apoc battles. So you get the big stuff filtering down into smaller games where IMHO they don’t fit/belong.

But in a tournament, where the gloves are off and the nasty stuff is hitting the table, you should expect to see those sort of things.

In a friendly game where you decide not to trot out the really nasty units/formations, a more old school list can still work.

The hard part is negotiating with your opponent to ensure a fun game for all. Power balance is so out of whack, it’s easy to get a one sided curb stomp, which isn’t really fun for anyone.

 Nevelon wrote:
The shift of accepting more of the big stuff that was previously relegated to things like apocalypse games really started in 6th.

40k still plays fine at the old levels, you just need to be sure you are on the same page of the type of game you want to play with your opponent. The biggest problem I have with 40k these days is that it’s trying to be everything from kill team skirmish to titan scaled apoc battles. So you get the big stuff filtering down into smaller games where IMHO they don’t fit/belong.

But in a tournament, where the gloves are off and the nasty stuff is hitting the table, you should expect to see those sort of things.

In a friendly game where you decide not to trot out the really nasty units/formations, a more old school list can still work.

The hard part is negotiating with your opponent to ensure a fun game for all. Power balance is so out of whack, it’s easy to get a one sided curb stomp, which isn’t really fun for anyone.

This, i still cringe when i see the following hit the table in non apoc games

Super heavy walkers
Super heavy tanks
GMC
D weapons of anykind
Torrent weapons
Anything larger then an 8 inch blast excluding the orbital bombardment

They just are out of place imo, also the amount of AP on the field is staggering.

AP is not the issue as much as wound spam now.

Martel732 wrote:
AP is not the issue as much as wound spam now.

Yeah that is true, but im more referring to the ease of access to ap 1 and 2

Yes, but cover mitigates AP pretty badly. Try killing a toe-in-cover MC with meltaguns. Now try killing it with wound spam.

As mentioned, it's because they went with "one book for everything" in a way that meant both gloves were off in each and every game. It's meant that people are only playing Apocalypse now, effectively. The idea of this being a "skirmish" game pretty much went away in 6th edition.

If I had to point at a specific moment, I'd have to say it was when Codex: Imperial Knights was released. I mean, there were already lots of issues before that, but this was the moment where "a Superheavy in Every Game" was really born. Also remember that before this, Wraithknights were Monstrous Creatures, not Gargantuan.

Yet the Imperial Knights are less durable than a Riptide.

I noted this several years ago when the flyers showed up. I was hosted a game at a convention which was also running a 40K tournament. I walked around early in the con when everyone was showing off on display boards --- and I had never seen flyers before. Of the sixty+ people involved, I'd say 45 had flyers on the board...often more than one.

I was blown away. Fast forward a year or two and it became Knights and similarly obscenely large items. It is for this reason I can't think of a way GW can get me back into 40K with a new edition. I frequently think to myself "what would the point be of a normal Imperial Guard squad on today's tabletop...".

The level of the game is a huge turn off for me.

Martel732 wrote:
Yet the Imperial Knights are less durable than a Riptide.

While that may be true, I don't believe that's when the visual of the game as a "every game is Apocalypse" started. The Riptide was merely one of the drops in the bucket of things that started spiralling out of control. For regular armies, it would devastate anything those armies put out. You needed to field much stronger stuff to take on an army of Riptides. I was very tempted to say that the Farsight Enclaves is where the change happened, as that was the whole idea of the Force Org started going out the window. Since Apocalypse is "just bring everything you have" with no worry about the Force Org chart, and now all games are like that, it was a definite step in that direction.

 Elbows wrote:
I frequently think to myself "what would the point be of a normal Imperial Guard squad on today's tabletop...".

The level of the game is a huge turn off for me.

As a guard player, I can tell you thst there is no point in having a guard squad. i have essentially turned my back on standard 40k and have instead turned to kill team.

They just release the new KT rules, which is a different way to play at 200pts. There are restrictions on what you can get, and no formations.

In a way there is currently three versions of 40K: skirmish level (with rules that are not really intended for that, but it's not that bad), "normal" level, and apoc.
In the past years, the line between "normal" and apoc started to become very blurry, because as you saw, GMC and superheavies are all over the place, as well as big formations.

Maybe they should introduce an official "small sized battles" level, which would be a single CAD at 1000pts with no GMC/superheavy.

40k has never been meant to be a skirmish scale ONLY. However the most powerful things used to belong their own parts and extensions such apocalypse. The issue today is that they've been shifted to the standart scaled game, like 1500 lets say, starting its real route with the maliciois imperial knights codex. Previously such an amount of point would allow for infantry and a few vehicules, or the other way round few infantrymen and lots of tanks. Nowadays, those gigantic units haven't only been added to scales they're quite messing up, but the most tragic issue has been deleting the organisation chart. As a matter of fact, you would have been limited to say 1 gigantic stuff or even none. Now, the formation system is totally unbalanced as everyone has and still rightly complain, and it allows for an ashaming number of too big guns to get fielded. And may even make them most powerful.

In fact i entirely agree with your . GW conveys the impression of getting jorribly over scaled znd of course' even more expensive. What's more they basiczlly locked the turnaments for casual players: NO OP NO WAY YOU WIN is knd of a new motto by now...

fresus wrote:
They just release the new KT rules, which is a different way to play at 200pts. There are restrictions on what you can get, and no formations.

In a way there is currently three versions of 40K: skirmish level (with rules that are not really intended for that, but it's not that bad), "normal" level, and apoc.
In the past years, the line between "normal" and apoc started to become very blurry, because as you saw, GMC and superheavies are all over the place, as well as big formations.

Maybe they should introduce an official "small sized battles" level, which would be a single CAD at 1000pts with no GMC/superheavy.

The focus of such should still be the common troops on each side. I have tried upscaling the HOR ruleset to around 600 points and it actually worked really well due to the squad mechanic that reduces the tedium of moving each model indepently. I suggest you try that out.

 Stormonu wrote:
I attended a local Con this weekend that had a 40K tournament, at 1850 pts. After witnessing the armies duking it out on the battlefield, I'm very glad I didn't get involved in it.

While I imagine the folks playing had fun (or they wouldn't be doing it), the scope of things on the battlefield was personally, a turn-off. I remember one army fielding a Warhound Titan; another was fielding nothing but Tau Riptides (plus a couple Forgeworld variants I wasn't falimiar with); the funniest was the 5-man "Hello Kitty" Knight formation. Another person was running some sort of IG-Genestealer cult with a dozen or so Earthshaker batteries (?!?). A few others were either running drop pod marine lists (5 man squads per pod, about a dozen pods) or Eldar scatbikes (that somehow appeared to be arriving by Deep Strike) - backed up by a Wraithknight.

Looking at the games going on, I now understand why everyone hates regular infantry - the game has turned into a tankfest. It's like Epic in 28mm scale, and with the armies I own and play at home (which are primarily infantry, with 1-2 transports and 1 tank at best), I wouldn't stand a chance against them.

When did this shift to titan-scale armies occur? Has it been due to the points level? Is it because of the release of larger kits? Is it the rules pushing for this sort of upscaled game?

40k has had scale issues for a while, but it exploded with 7E, where the old FoC that relegated most things to 3 or fewer is no longer a factor and you can basically just bring whatever you want, and restrictions on superheavies were tossed out the window.

7E 40k is trying to do what 3 or 4 other games used to do and roll a skirmish ruleset, a company level wargame, and an Epic scale game into one ruleset, and it just doesnt work terribly well.

40k is in dire need of a major fundamental reboot and split into at least two if not three different scales.

It's called Unbound and is the default setting for playing 40K now. Basically, it's "anything goes" and bring whatever you want to play with. As the baseline for playing 40K like this, there is no advantages or disadvantages. The intent was for newer players or people not interested in collecting a faction to basically be able to play with the models they have. It's also for those narrative campaigns/scenarios like when the Necron's and Blood Angels became bro's to stop a Tyranid invasion. You know, Forging the Narrative.

It's the Wild Wild West of Warhammer 40K.

 Tamwulf wrote:
It's called Unbound and is the default setting for playing 40K now. Basically, it's "anything goes" and bring whatever you want to play with. As the baseline for playing 40K like this, there is no advantages or disadvantages. The intent was for newer players or people not interested in collecting a faction to basically be able to play with the models they have. It's also for those narrative campaigns/scenarios like when the Necron's and Blood Angels became bro's to stop a Tyranid invasion. You know, Forging the Narrative.

It's the Wild Wild West of Warhammer 40K.

I don't know of any tournament that would allow unbound lists.
A full IK or full Riptide list can very easily be a battleforged list. It's actually part of the problem.

fresus wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
It's called Unbound and is the default setting for playing 40K now. Basically, it's "anything goes" and bring whatever you want to play with. As the baseline for playing 40K like this, there is no advantages or disadvantages. The intent was for newer players or people not interested in collecting a faction to basically be able to play with the models they have. It's also for those narrative campaigns/scenarios like when the Necron's and Blood Angels became bro's to stop a Tyranid invasion. You know, Forging the Narrative.

It's the Wild Wild West of Warhammer 40K.

I don't know of any tournament that would allow unbound lists.
A full IK or full Riptide list can very easily be a battleforged list. It's actually part of the problem.

In the OP's original description, that's what the tournament was. And places do run Unbound tournaments. I've seen them before, and like I said, it's the Wild Wild West. The annual Ordo Fanatics Club Challenge this year allowed Unbound lists, and it proved very interesting to see what some people brought.

Most people buy into the ITC Rules and therefor never see Unbound games. However, if you go play at a GW store, it's all Unbound. And presumably when the GT's come back next year, they will be Unbound as well.

Depends, GW used to really hammer down on the GT's back in the 90's. They'd issue very arbitrary restrictions on armies. I don't know how they did in the mid 2000's (when did they run the last GW sponsored GT?).

It used to be a point of GW staffers to intentionally make each GT different with list restrictions, to avoid people creating ultra-lists and using them for several years. One year they simply outlawed the Psychic Phase...lol.

If you want an answer on when this all started I'd say the problems started to appear in 5th but didn't get out of control until 6th. New-army-wins syndrome, gun-size/model-size creep, Escalation (the 6e 'take superheavies in normal games!' supplement), and character/ally shenanigans trumping solid cores seem to have grown up slowly since.

The problem is less an intentional 'push new stuff!' plan on GW's part and more an impossibly tight playtest schedule that leads to most of the game getting pushed out the door half done at best.

Hrm, I would disagree with the idea that there are playtest issues. This implies playtesting was every really a big thing for GW, which just isnt true.

Furthermore, its painfully apparent through things like formations and the inclusion of ever larger units, coupled with gobs of rules that are obviously not balanced to even the most casual reader at a first glance (there are some things you dont need to playtest to see that theyre hideously broken, War Convocations, Skyhammer formations, Scatterbikes, etc), that it really is a "push new stuff" thing. It's all about pushing web bundles and big payoff plastic kits.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If you want an answer on when this all started I'd say the problems started to appear in 5th but didn't get out of control until 6th. New-army-wins syndrome, gun-size/model-size creep, Escalation (the 6e 'take superheavies in normal games!' supplement), and character/ally shenanigans trumping solid cores seem to have grown up slowly since.

The problem is less an intentional 'push new stuff!' plan on GW's part and more an impossibly tight playtest schedule that leads to most of the game getting pushed out the door half done at best.

Army creep, with the latest being the best, has been around as long as I can remember.

Switching out what’s hot is also a staple of the game. One edition rhino-rush is king, the next transports are deathtraps. Better buy something new to be competitive.

Moving away from the FOC and the addition of allies has compounded the balance problem. It used to be the worst you could spam of any slot was 3. And needed to pay a tax of mediocre units to get that. With formations, you just get the riptide wing. No chaff, pure wheat.

Allies gives you access to a much wider range of good stuff. Not just to shore up the weak points of your own list (like adding some eldar for psychic support in a 6th ed Tau list) but it opens up the door for rules interactions that promote shenanigans and unkillable combo-deathstars. I like them for a thematic POV (hey lets have a handful of space marines supporting a guard list) but the potential for abuse is huge.

“Potential for abuse” sums up a lot of problems with 40k these day, come to think about it. A lot of things individually are not a bad idea, but toss them all into the pool, and things get funky.

Back to the topic of overpowered armies, those in the OP all sound doable as bound lists. Some of them might be counts-as. The cult with the artillery sounds like the chaos renegade guard list. I’m not sure about DSing eldar bikes, but turboboosting in from reserves might look like that to a casual observer, and I’m not up on the corsair or harli rules.

You can probably make a more powerful list via bound armies then unbound. There are enough broken formations, that by leveraging them you can do more harm then just spamming a few good units in an unstructured format.

I wouldn't agree with "everyone hates...."

I speculate (having never been to one) that some of the issue is that you were at a tournament, where I assume the object is to win. Therefore you bring the strongest stuff....

I reserve the right to be told "You just don't understand tournaments" (I don't) and that I've got it all wrong.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Torrent weapons

You dont think the Hellhound should be a thing?

 King Pariah wrote:
It's the result of the malignant tumors originating from 6th edition known as escalation and formations.

This is pretty much it. The game has gotten to the point where you take infantry only as a "tax", and the main part of your force are big things.