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

Yup. They kept it under control better back in 4th/5th, however. The degree was less excessive (the distance between the top of the pile and the bottom of the pile was smaller) and power didn't fluctuate wildly between releases (these days you have GK, DE, and Orks getting nerfed when they didn't need it, and Eldar and Marines getting buffed when they didn't, exacerbating the problem).

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

This. 6th edition is when everything got out of hand. 7th dialed it up even more so. So what you are seeing now is years of unregulated power creep. I'd expect 8th edition to be no different sadly unless GW allows someone else to purchase the IP or they clean house over there and get someone at the helm that cares about the hobby.

Play 500-1000 pt games, what's the problem.

 Stormonu wrote:

When did this shift to titan-scale armies occur?

I would say that it started when 6th came out with flyers and allies. Wraith Knights tilted the scales a little further and the Tau Codex started the avalanche. From there it has been down hill ever since. I gave up on 6th after playing a few games, too many fidly bits and trying to do too much at once. I have watched reports and still occasionally look to see what is going on at the 40K tables in the local shop, but these days I hardly recognize the game. I can still get a game of 5th in every now and then so I am thankful I don't need GW for my 40K fix. It is sad to see the state of things from what it was.

Echoing everyone else here, it happened as we see it today in 6th, thats when the triple whammy of the knight, riptide, and wraithknight appeared. Worst part is that they're all cool models FOR APOCALYPSE. Several players I knew, myself included, would've bought a knight for apocalypse, but didn't buy one as a protest to them being in the regular game (clearly that didn't work )

Other things, like formations, and a general decrease in points per model are to blame as well. For example, most armies have had their prices of their units go down on average. It felt like a sneaky way of GW saying "dang, they refuse to go over 2,000pts... ok screw it make most units cheaper so they just run more models anyways."

Also several formations give out free wargear and weapons. Some, like the skitarii ones, give you so many freebies you can take more pts of upgrades than the unit was base for free. This leads to blatant bloat as well since free models can just be added on.


The only way to get around it is to limit your game size and stick to players you know usually as sad as it is to say. 1,000pts still holds up alright, and kill team should be fun too. We also do a couple of gentleman's agreements that while apocalypse style stuff isnt necessarily banned, you should tell your opponent you want that kind of match well before hand so they can prepare.

Well, i've played against IK, WK, Riptides, Tyranid fmc spam, Daemon FMC spam and while all this stuff is strong, it's not gamebreaking. The IK is probably the most "not too bad to face" out of this bunch.

But keep in mind that i mostly play orks and a heavy bolter is as devastating for me as a d-cannon and a Riptide is as unkillable at range as a predator. So, my pov might get affected by this ork's specific of everything being so crappy that you can't make it worse with a 100-ton robot. A 5-ton was allready deadly enough.

That horrible filth called 6th edition happened right after Matt Ward blew out his crackpipe and Phil Kelly was coming down from a 2 year crank bender.

And, as was standard issue under Kirbys, GW instead of fixing the problem and dialing back the stupidity, they doubled down on it

Don't get me wrong, I've adapted and still love 40k, but I maintain the aforementioned never should have happened.

Honestly you could bery easily point the blame at 5th Edition for being the originator of this trend as it gave us models such as the DE Razorwing, BA & Grey Knight Stormraven, GK Dreadknight, SM Storm Talon, Ork Dakkajet, Burna Bomma & Blitza Bomma, Necron Night & Doom Scythes and Tyranid Trygon & Mawlock.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Honestly you could bery easily point the blame at 5th Edition for being the originator of this trend as it gave us models such as the DE Razorwing, BA & Grey Knight Stormraven, GK Dreadknight, SM Storm Talon, Ork Dakkajet, Burna Bomma & Blitza Bomma, Necron Night & Doom Scythes and Tyranid Trygon & Mawlock.

IIRC, the Storm Talon, Dakkajet, and some of the bigger Tyranids came out in 6th, not 5th. Also in 5th Flyers were only part of FW, the Razorwing, Stormraven, and Scythes were skimmers back then.

I suppose this is a bad time to say that I love the current scale of 40k.

My armies are: Superheavy tanks and... superheavy tanks which are even bigger. I've sold everything else; my sisters army went on ebay a month ago.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Honestly you could bery easily point the blame at 5th Edition for being the originator of this trend as it gave us models such as the DE Razorwing, BA & Grey Knight Stormraven, GK Dreadknight, SM Storm Talon, Ork Dakkajet, Burna Bomma & Blitza Bomma, Necron Night & Doom Scythes and Tyranid Trygon & Mawlock.

IIRC, the Storm Talon, Dakkajet, and some of the bigger Tyranids came out in 6th, not 5th. Also in 5th Flyers were only part of FW, the Razorwing, Stormraven, and Scythes were skimmers back then.

Nope, those were all 5th. Admittedly the Storm Talon and Ork Flyers came out close to the very end of the edition and only had rules in WD, but they were still in 5th.

Sure, the flyers were only Fast Skimmers, but they were still tall models with a fairly large foot-print.

Things went out of control in 6th, but is 5th where all started.

In 5th the difference between the top tier and the low tier armies widened (but was lesser than now).

In 5th, the biggest fluff-murders started to appear in the codices, where Hack Kelly wolfed the Wolves, the Talented Mr. Ward blooded the Blood Angels.

In 5th, new bullcrap special snowflake units were added to armies bloating the game and putting it out of control.

In 5th, the limits of what an assault weapon and a heavy weapon can do were destroyed or blended; the Talented mr. Ward went out of his head with the Necron weapons. Or the Crudd"ace" and his pratical Heavy 20 useless bullcrap.

In 6th, those hacks just started to write half-hearted stuff rushed because of the new policy "new crap out all the time". They wrote low powered codices for CSM and DA on the trail of Dark vengeance, before the [anime related word censored] Vetock wrote a tau codex absolutely not on par with the Dark Angels one, and decided that yes, those Riptide models MUST sell out. And we understood that no, GW did not decide to tone down the game, it was Codex Lottery all over again, up to 11.

Other than that, 6th edition is just erratic, and full of pointless stuff like more randumb, random warlord traits, more units or soul blaze. 6th exacerbated what 5th started but its biggest crime was to make the game longer and take away from the players as much planning and skill possible.

Then 7th came, exacerbated all of this even more, with maelstrom mission appreciated because "I want just to roll some dice and chill lol" or because "it helps underdogs" (remember kids, do not ask for things being fixed, just avoid the problem! This lesson will be useful in life! Balance, planning and tactics are out of the windows? NO PROBLEM! Codices and rules will be not fixed, let's just use a system in which victory conditions are random and kills the gameplay of low mobility armies!). And a psychic phase right from WHFB, where it was its biggest problem.

BTW, SpamHammer 40k always existed, but each iteration is worse. How many tactics thread are answered with "just spam X?" And it's what GW wants, because people will buy copies of the same kit

Oh my.

Oh, and as far as army scale goes, my smallest army at 3000 points has 9 models. And I love it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, and as far as army scale goes, my smallest army at 3000 points has 9 models. And I love it.

While I can strongly sympathise with the folks complaining about it, bighammer is *so much fun*. 4k point games with an emphasis on super heavies can and do take less time than a game of kill team

5 knights, 3 BaneXs, 8 flyers and 1 marauder here. Getting tooled up for a 16k pt game soon.

Is this more of an issue for people who have been in the game longer? I started in RT and have ducked in and out a few times, but have played most editions. I love having infantry - not necessarily IG or Ork style hordes, but plenty of marines with a few tanks, rather than loads of vehicles, flyers etc with just the troop/infantry tax. This is purely my preference and I think it's because it's what I started with and therefore what my armies are composed of.

I've recently introduced 3 guys to the game. They're all great guys and really into the game. They don't know the older state of the game so are immediately taking about IK, riptides etc. (one already had 2 flyrants ready for his first game). They're excited by these things and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that at some point they'll have to rein it in, or I'll have to crank it up and join the arms race. As we're all pretty reasonable, I'm sure we'll find a compromise.

The problem is that the game is a little skitzophrenic. So for one person it's massive robots, for another it's infantry. It doesn't have to be about points limits. I can field 2000pts without any super heavies and few tanks. I'd like that. But the game allows that to happen against riptide spam, or IK or whatever.

I don't think there's a solution beyond agreeing with your opponent. Although I don't like how it's changed, that doesn't make it wrong. Unfortunately we just have to adapt. If they split into 'classic' and 'apoc' either me or my newly recruited players would still have to compromise.

 malamis wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, and as far as army scale goes, my smallest army at 3000 points has 9 models. And I love it.

While I can strongly sympathise with the folks complaining about it, bighammer is *so much fun*. 4k point games with an emphasis on super heavies can and do take less time than a game of kill team

Yeah, this. I feel like people's resistance to the concept is so overwhelming that they won't give it a chance. 'bighammer' as you say is basically Epic without the awful models, and it's great .

 malamis wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, and as far as army scale goes, my smallest army at 3000 points has 9 models. And I love it.

While I can strongly sympathise with the folks complaining about it, bighammer is *so much fun*. 4k point games with an emphasis on super heavies can and do take less time than a game of kill team

I do not doubt it, but it should happen in a scenario decided in advance only. Now it can happen in a pickup game. I could not have the same superheavy army with me and have 60% of my weapons/units useless.

 Whittlesey40k wrote:
Is this more of an issue for people who have been in the game longer? I started in RT and have ducked in and out a few times, but have played most editions. I love having infantry - not necessarily IG or Ork style hordes, but plenty of marines with a few tanks, rather than loads of vehicles, flyers etc with just the troop/infantry tax. This is purely my preference and I think it's because it's what I started with and therefore what my armies are composed of.

I've recently introduced 3 guys to the game. They're all great guys and really into the game. They don't know the older state of the game so are immediately taking about IK, riptides etc. (one already had 2 flyrants ready for his first game). They're excited by these things and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that at some point they'll have to rein it in, or I'll have to crank it up and join the arms race. As we're all pretty reasonable, I'm sure we'll find a compromise.

The problem is that the game is a little skitzophrenic. So for one person it's massive robots, for another it's infantry. It doesn't have to be about points limits. I can field 2000pts without any super heavies and few tanks. I'd like that. But the game allows that to happen against riptide spam, or IK or whatever.

I don't think there's a solution beyond agreeing with your opponent. Although I don't like how it's changed, that doesn't make it wrong. Unfortunately we just have to adapt. If they split into 'classic' and 'apoc' either me or my newly recruited players would still have to compromise.

I mean, I've been playing since 3rd when I ran the Tank Company list for IG from Chapter Approved. But I've always wanted to run big stuff - as soon as I got a baneblade, I was running it in 3rd. As soon as I got more than 1, I was using the 3-Baneblade scenario from the Battle Missions book in 5th.

I love the things and always have.


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 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 malamis wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, and as far as army scale goes, my smallest army at 3000 points has 9 models. And I love it.

While I can strongly sympathise with the folks complaining about it, bighammer is *so much fun*. 4k point games with an emphasis on super heavies can and do take less time than a game of kill team

I do not doubt it, but it should happen in a scenario decided in advance only. Now it can happen in a pickup game. I could not have the same superheavy army with me and have 60% of my weapons/units useless.

If 60% of your units are useless against, say, a Baneblade company, that's on you. Even the most basic marine squads in my meta have krak grenades to engage the vehicles if they can get close,even if they have nothing else. I mean heck, Leman Russ Tank Companies have existed since 3rd edition in the game, and at least armour-wise aren't really so different from Baneblades.

The rule sets in editions 3 to 5 were really tight. But with the invention of formations and ''unbound'' the whole meta changed. The lists mentioned by the OP could be the final nail in the GW coffin.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 malamis wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, and as far as army scale goes, my smallest army at 3000 points has 9 models. And I love it.

While I can strongly sympathise with the folks complaining about it, bighammer is *so much fun*. 4k point games with an emphasis on super heavies can and do take less time than a game of kill team

I do not doubt it, but it should happen in a scenario decided in advance only. Now it can happen in a pickup game. I could not have the same superheavy army with me and have 60% of my weapons/units useless.

And that's the rub; someone is going to have to make a compromise in advance *anyway* without pre-arrangement, and there's no small amount inertia on the part of the 'SmallHammer' faction - for the quite reasonable justification that big models are expensive and they have other priorities in life.

That's why I sympathise, the SmallHammer faction is gradually being muscled out due to lack of modern relevance, without a meaningful alternative being presented for your $x years invested. Conversely us BigHammers, through no fault of our own, are getting tarred with a hostile powergamer brush when in many cases we just like big models cuz they're fun to build and easy to paint/airbrush.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


If 60% of your units are useless against, say, a Baneblade company, that's on you. Even the most basic marine squads in my meta have krak grenades to engage the vehicles if they can get close,even if they have nothing else. I mean heck, Leman Russ Tank Companies have existed since 3rd edition in the game, and at least armour-wise aren't really so different from Baneblades.

Ok, no Aspect Warrior Eldar army + vehicles with 0-1 unit each, carefully collected and painted. You already know what I am going to do instead. It will be fun.

For one of us.

See the problem?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 malamis wrote:


And that's the rub; someone is going to have to make a compromise in advance *anyway* without pre-arrangement, and there's no small amount inertia on the part of the 'SmallHammer' faction - for the quite reasonable justification that big models are expensive and they have other priorities in life.

That's why I sympathise, the SmallHammer faction is gradually being muscled out due to lack of modern relevance, without a meaningful alternative being presented for your $x years invested. Conversely us BigHammers, through no fault of our own, are getting tarred with a hostile powergamer brush when in many cases we just like big models cuz they're fun to build and easy to paint/airbrush.

Is because we are playing 2 different games but GW says is the same game. This is a de facto unhealthy and unscrupulous policy of the company, is borderline fraudulent.

My question is, how long before all collapses?

 Tamwulf wrote:

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.

Rubbish, all of the armies described can be bound.

All riptides?
All knights?
All scatbikes and wraithknights?
All artillery?
Two warhound at 1800 points?

All completely possible in bound.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:

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.

Rubbish, all of the armies described can be bound.

All riptides?
All knights?
All scatbikes and wraithknights?
All artillery?
Two warhound at 1800 points?

All completely possible in bound.

Even if these armies can be bound, it will feel like a different game.

Gw has moved away from forcing players to play a horde army. Most costumers don't enjoy collecting and painting hordes, they enjoy painting and collecting cool stuff.

So GW upscaled the game and rewards playing an elite army/

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
40k has ever been meant to be a skirmish scale ONLY.

That just isn't true, the transition from 2nd to 3rd marked a big shift away from being a skirmish games. 2K marine armies in 3rd were 50-60 guys with transports plus multiple tanks, etc. That is not a skirmish game.


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 wuestenfux wrote:

Even if these armies can be bound, it will feel like a different game.

Absolutely but blaming it on unbound is ridiculous when bound armies can be just as extreme and are, in some cases, stronger.

There needs to two official rule sets, skirmish/small force level and then the grand size bring anything (formerly apocalypse) level. I also think the rules could be tailored to each of the games.

 Huron black heart wrote:
There needs to two official rule sets, skirmish/small force level and then the grand size bring anything (formerly apocalypse) level. I also think the rules could be tailored to each of the games.

I think this is the motivation behind the Killteam release.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


If 60% of your units are useless against, say, a Baneblade company, that's on you. Even the most basic marine squads in my meta have krak grenades to engage the vehicles if they can get close,even if they have nothing else. I mean heck, Leman Russ Tank Companies have existed since 3rd edition in the game, and at least armour-wise aren't really so different from Baneblades.

Ok, no Aspect Warrior Eldar army + vehicles with 0-1 unit each, carefully collected and painted. You already know what I am going to do instead. It will be fun.

For one of us.

See the problem?

How did you deal with Leman Russ tank companies in 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th?

 Huron black heart wrote:
There needs to two official rule sets, skirmish/small force level and then the grand size bring anything (formerly apocalypse) level. I also think the rules could be tailored to each of the games.

We already have had this distinction. I wish the tight rulle set of 5th ed (or something similar) back for games up to 2000 pts. Then at a larger scale, starting with 2000 pts, the game could be of apocalypse type with super heavies and whatnot.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


How did you deal with Leman Russ tank companies in 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th?

Never had personal experience in 3rd. IIRC, was a White Dwarf list circumscribed to the guard, at least in 3rd.

Later , I was the tanks, I had a veterans plus tanks guard in 5th, but I had to stop because I moved.

And correct me if I am wrong, but then even glances could destroy a tank. And assault tanks was easier.

And 3 Leman russ are not 1 super-heavy, we discussed this to death.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 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.

Unless you're playing Guard. Good luck leaving the infantry at home, especially when faced with crap like the Skyhammer Annihilation Force or other such nonsense.