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.

Awhile ago, I stumbled upon an old debate on /tg/ over what makes armies competitive versus non-competitive, and one anon suggested that despite the swords and sorcery, your army will generally be more powerful the closer its design can be analogous to the roles present in a modern army. When asked to clarify, he said something along the lines of:

"The weaker armies are usually missing at least one of several following tools: A good MBT (or equivalent Monster), Ground Attack aircraft, IFV, artillery, or a mobile tank destroyer. Dark Eldar do have Razorwing fighters and a passable tank hunter in the Ravager, but are otherwise similar to Orks and Chaos army in that they fight as the functional equivalent of drugged-up Somalis in technicals with the odd RPG here and there, and these armies have many units (The Talos, Killa Kanz, Khorne Berserkers, Mutilators, etc) that are more fit for a televised battle arena than an actual battlefield."

How accurate would you say such a statement is, and would you say that 40k army design/gameplay can roughly mimic how "modern warfare" works?

The case against it: You have Cavalry and other "melee" units in the game, and it's possible to kill many vehicles in the game by slicing at them in close combat. You also have the option to bring giant stompy robots and monsters and summon Daemonic creatures, and characters may challenge each other to duels in close combat. Daemons remain a viable army despite being an army that's almost entirely built around magic and melee, while Space Wolves have the "Barkbarkstar". We don't have any real-world equivalent to Drop Pod or DS Battlesuit Armies, which are more inspired by the Mobile Armored Infantry from Starship Troopers than anything we currently have in the works.

The case for it: The game still ultimately favors shooting, and the best psychic powers are those that either shoot (Psychic Shriek), buff your shooting (Prescience/Guide/Perfect Timing), or protect you against it (Endurance/Invisibility/etc). Generally, the best defense against being shot is to be the first one to shoot, whether that's planning out a proper advance through cover, or outflanking. Massed light vehicle rushes can fall flat the moment your opponent brings Fliers. The giant stompy robots tend to do less damage through close combat compared to the large guns they can bring: The Riptide is a dangerous "all-around" unit, capable of being used for tank-hunting, storming objectives, or providing effective bounding overwatch for the rest of your army. The Wraithknight is either fielded as an MBT-analogue with really powerful anti-tank guns, or as a "beehive" sweeper.

What are your thoughts?

40k is a Fanatsy universe with a SciFi skin. In the current edition, shooting is *generally* more powerful than CC, but this isnt the case in every edition, and varies between armies and builds.

With regards to anything resembling modern combat, 40k falls flat very quickly, with about the most modern methods we see being WW2 era, most WW1 or older in terms of capabilities and methods, most often actually a jumbled mess of all of these.

 Vaktathi wrote:
40k is a Fanatsy universe with a SciFi skin. In the current edition, shooting is *generally* more powerful than CC, but this isnt the case in every edition, and varies between armies and builds.

With regards to anything resembling modern combat, 40k falls flat very quickly, with about the most modern methods we see being WW2 era, most WW1 or older in terms of capabilities and methods, most often actually a jumbled mess of all of these.

yea a game closer to a modern battle would be like DZC or maybe battle tech?? idk i havent touched battle tech since she was in her diapers as a model game. back then a banshee was just a piece of concept art in an art book

I havent played BT in a while and cant remember too much mechanics. DzC is probably the closest, though still is mostly ultimately a WW2 style combat game but they at least put some thought and effort into explaining that with countermeasure systems that can intercept/shield/fool/etc projectiles and missiles fired from great distances. Dropfleet however looks to follow in the same vein as BFG and Firestorm Armada of being another Age of Sail in Space game.

It's really hard to make a tabletop game around actual modern battle because so much of it is off table stuff and real examples are usually one side getting utterly curbstomped (see the two Gulf Wars) or reverting to older equipment and tactics (see Iran-Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, etc). Nobody wants to play a game where one side stumbles into a patrol from the other and is obliterated by an airstrike or artillery barrage they had no idea was coming, called in by an unseen observer, or losing that neat Flyer after it was detected by an AWACs 80 miles away and shot down by a missile fired from 100 miles away that has no representation on the table

 Vaktathi wrote:
40k is a Fanatsy universe with a SciFi skin. In the current edition, shooting is *generally* more powerful than CC, but this isnt the case in every edition, and varies between armies and builds.

With regards to anything resembling modern combat, 40k falls flat very quickly, with about the most modern methods we see being WW2 era, most WW1 or older in terms of capabilities and methods, most often actually a jumbled mess of all of these.

"Most often a jumbled mess" sounds like an entertaining explanation, and I figure a lot of that is a result of the game mechanics themselves. Stuff like suppressive fire or artillery spotting are more often kludged into the game via formations, rather than being a core concept of the game, while the mechanics of "one unit shoots at one other unit" prevents the game from modeling concepts like barrages (rolling, box, etc) without using special rules. That being said, "modern regular army versus modern regular army" wars post-WWII are a rarity either way, and other than Russia intervening in Ossetia and arguably the Yom Kippur War (the Soviet equipment the Egyptians and Syrians had was arguably in a similar league as the Israeli arsenal, but their training and command structures remained a mess), there haven't been any notable wars where two modern armies have gone at it against each other. In fact, some of those wars (notably: The Iran-Iraq of the 80s, or the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 1998-2000) may well have been WWI theatres for all intents and purposes. Maybe WWII or Korea are the closest things to "modern" wars that we have for purposes of making a game where two roughly symmetrical forces have a go at each other?

 ionusx wrote:
yea a game closer to a modern battle would be like DZC or maybe battle tech?? idk i havent touched battle tech since she was in her diapers as a model game. back then a banshee was just a piece of concept art in an art book

You should look up "Force on Force" by Ambush Alley games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
It's really hard to make a tabletop game around actual modern battle because so much of it is off table stuff and real examples are usually one side getting utterly curbstomped (see the two Gulf Wars) or reverting to older equipment and tactics (see Iran-Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, etc). Nobody wants to play a game where one side stumbles into a patrol from the other and is obliterated by an airstrike or artillery barrage they had no idea was coming, called in by an unseen observer, or losing that neat Flyer after it was detected by an AWACs 80 miles away and shot down by a missile fired from 100 miles away that has no representation on the table

Not to mention Yugoslavia, where the Serbians actually shot down an F-117A because it was built to deflect contemporary radar designs, yet the Serbians jury-rigged *old* obsolete radar equipment that the F-117A designers didn't even account for!

And I imagine "AWACs" wouldn't be *too* hard to do with some fancy-schmancy rule that allows certain units to forfeit ability to Intercept in exchange for granting it to nearby units or so. To a kludgier extent, there's nothing preventing Tau from running a Drone Wing with Interceptor Markerlight Drones and having them Intercept Markerlights for a nearby unit of Broadsides.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Not to mention Yugoslavia, where the Serbians actually shot down an F-117A because it was built to deflect contemporary radar designs, yet the Serbians jury-rigged *old* obsolete radar equipment that the F-117A designers didn't even account for!

Meh.

Really, it was more, 'don't become complacent and fly your patrols along the exact same vector at about the same time day after day, because that makes it very easy for some with hostile intentions to make sure one day, there's something waiting there.

Really, there's a reason that actual military tactics fail to be applicable to any game, except in the broadest of terms. If the focus is on ground battles, air superiority might not even exist. If it's a game about dogfighting, then the actual capability of ground interference, and the need to account for it might be grossly represented. A game that wants to see hot tank on tank action might under represent the need for combined arms support and the dangers of being isolated in urban environments.

Whoever stated that never played 4th edition, where a Jump Pack Lord with Lightning Claws and a Melta Bomb could solo entire armies by abusing consolidation shenanigans, despite the flaw in logic this brings.

In addition what is "modern" warfare is like asking what is "medieval times". We all know it's sometime in the distant past, just before the Renaissance, but try to pin down a definitive year range would have people giving you radically different numbers. All of these change depending on the times, both 40k and real life tactics.

For example, a Space Marine's armor is equivalent to that of a light tank; there is absolutely nothing in our modern combat doctrine for what to do if we meet an army of small, human-sized tanks charging at you with chainsaws apart from "running away with thoroughly browned pants" or "shell the place until nothing moves". Another thing is that 40k shorten the ranges of a lot of weapons to make close combat viable; most people point out that bolters and even the basilisk are comically short-ranged compared to their current-day equivalents, but without this close combat wouldn't be viable (or really the game itself as any sort of match would need to be played in a subway tunnel). In real life, it would be like as if these marines were sprinting at the speed of a decent tuner car (and bikes would be going sub-sonic).

Finally, one thing that irritates me is whenever someone asks for a unit like the MBT; a Main Battle Tank is designed to basically take on most major combat roles with only a few shortcomings. This is the ideal for a real-life combat machine (as it would be the near-perfect warmachine) but is a horrible concept for game design. Games are built with the idea that there should always be some sort of counter-play, so there must always be a weakness for you to exploit (now there are invincible combos in games, but their drawback is assembling said combo). This is why any army with something that truly fits the definition of a MBT seems to be more powerful; with no reason to actually take other units they can just spam that one unit over and over again. And with little to no weaknesses to exploit, these are indeed quite powerful.

Basically my point is, the only reason it seems like that statement rings true is because of the current game's buffs and because he's asking for units that will, quite literally, break the game further.

40k is completely unlike actual combat in any way, yeah what that guy said could be very loosely followed and he would be right, but generally speaking it isn't the case.

Tau are top 3 in my opinion and they don't have a Ground attack aircraft worth a damn really, they don't really have an IFV (Devilfish suck). In my opinion the success of the armies is completely related to how many fanboys work for GW at the time the codex was written. ATM Eldar/SM/Tau fanboys are in charge.

The general principle of a mixture of specifics with regards to a certain tactical situation adding up to give you a recipe for success does ring true to modern military thinking.

Beyond the general principle stated as ambiguously as above however the comparison ends. In 40k that principle is expressed as the combination of certain units that are fielded together with specific roles that combat the different prospective enemy abilities. So an anti armour unit with an anti infantry unit with an anti air element with a flyer all offer mutual support in a way that is very obvious. The devastors take out enemy armour whilst the assault squad mops up light infantry all whilst the stalker downs enemy aircraft and the stormraven lends the group support to all as the Tactical squad takes objectives. This is fine but only really works in a game setting.

In a small engagement the likes if which are represented on a tabletop the array of units with different roles would not be seen. In reality "modern" military units are best as jack of all trades in a large theatre. Infantry must possess the ability to operate in a multitude of roles and be flexible enough to switch between them where the situation calls for it. Infantry must be able to operate in close proximity to targets ie. In urban areas against other infantry and vehicles and armour and also in rural and remote areas. At this level other things come into play which cannot really be properly accounted for on the tabletop. Extensive drills on the range, in house clearance, cqb tactics, small unit tactics and even things like muscle memory and general discipline play a huge part in combat effectiveness. Of course the ability to be able to be integrated into a larger force with armoured elements in support is important but even then these things especially armour and air power are almost always utilised in one sided conflicts.

Air assets will unlikely be utilised on a large scale where air superiority is not being aggressively pursued in the first stages of operations if not already ensured. Ground to air capabilities are neutralised as a priority in real world conflicts, again very early on in a campaign. This leads to a situation on the ground where force multipliers stack the odds in favour of the side which can field their troops with the best equipment, who have had the best training, which are better supplied (logistics is what really wins wars) and with support of armour (as air superiority has already been gained removing much of the enemy's tactical assets). This uneven fight is what commanders are trained extensively to strive for and if it is not achievable you do not engage and employ a plan which is more suited to you where you can stack the deck in your favour instead. In real conflicts involving "modern" military forces you would almost never get a conflict where one of the two opposing sides has not already made the firefight a foregone conclusion.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I havent played BT in a while and cant remember too much mechanics.

Battletech's got some pretty marked differances. you have optional rules for everything, artillery etc up to and including nukes. but there are also some biiiiiiiiiig differances. for one thing abalative armor is a big differance. there's no ability in table top for a infantryman hiding in a building to take a unescorted mech out with an RPG. (ok ok it IS theoreticly possiable but hoping for a lucky TAC crit that takes out the engine or something isn't something I'd rely on)