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 auticus wrote:
I also prefer diversity in my games. I also prefer not being able to memorize every army and knowing exactly what I'd be facing in every game. Because I did that for a decade of tournament play and it burned me out to the point I almost got out of this hobby permanently because of it.

If you can name even two such games that have seen enough competition to reveal their imbalance and yet have less imbalance than 40K, then your argument may hold some ground.

Warmaster and Epic.

I don't think that qualifies.
Neither were as wide and deep as 40K, neither saw the same success, tournament scene, and game-breaking attempts.

But I see your point about every game being the same.
And that's the case in every game, even those which are much better balanced.

Look at SC2, it's infinitely more balanced than any board game and a lot less diverse than 40K, yet there aren't 37 different builds for each faction.
It's great to want diversity, it's almost impossible to offer balance within diversity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

Maybe, you know, the worst fault of 40k is that it is a game that don't know what it want to be? A game where Titans kill infantry platoons in the droves but then you have different weapon profiles for the weapons your squad leader of that same infantry platoon its wearing.

Maybe thats the reason no other game with the "scale" of 40k exist, and thats why 40k its so unbalanced. Because other people know that this is a path with no good ending.

So essentially, what you're saying is that you don't like 40K the way it is, and then proceed to say instead that it's unreasonably unbalanced for the type of game it is.

Well here's the deal: it probably isn't.

And I totally agree that AOS-ification or any kind of simplification would be a GREAT thing for 40K.

I'm not sure that depends on the squad leader having a different weapon, because before that guy died last anyway so there never was any slowdown except when the platoon itself attacked.

So yeah, simplification would be good, bringing it closer to other simpler game systems would be good, but you still don't have any example of anything that's even remotely like 40K and that has a better diversity/balance compromise.

Those are all army-scale games. Thats where they qualify.

40k could be a lot better balanced if the company that produced it put game-balance as one of their priorities. They have repeatedly said in many blogs and interviews that its not their priority though.

It would never be perfectly balanced but there are a lot of really gross examples of imbalance that can be killed off with little effort.

When you can pick between two things, and something its just plain better than the other option... are you really having two options?


Its 40k really that diverse? Diversity, when mixed with a so unbalanced system than 60% of the options are uterly useless compared with the rest, its a ilusion of Diversity.

And I actually, as I said early, that I prefer diversity over balance. But I prefer ACTUAL diversity.
If I have 10 options equally playable, that game IS more diverse than a game that offer me 100 options where only 5 are useful.

But thats my impresion. And thats why I think that a game like Infinity or even Kings of War, with less options, offer more Diversity that the actual Warhammer 40k.

One example of my point: Codex: Tyranid Flyrant. One codex, only one real option.

40k has very little Diversity, It has no Balance in its diversity.
This in turn harms both its depth and how wide it is, when players are pushed into Form fit formats for there army.

It goes far more than balance of just rules when Players can turn up to games that one army can effectively Nullify Entire units, and worse when these units should be a base for the army construction.

Its a bit of a joke to think that 40k is some special snowflake with no game close. In the end you can have army with very few working elements, and some with more. But its not that far from the avg game of warmachine to the avg 40k games.

With the game of infinity have far more diversity of its basic elements than a lot of 40k army can have.

Bring on the AoSing! Maybe GW will get some good diversity in there models as well

 Galas wrote:
When you can pick between two things, and something its just plain better than the other option... are you really having two options?


Its 40k really that diverse? Diversity, when mixed with a so unbalanced system than 60% of the options are uterly useless compared with the rest, its a ilusion of Diversity.

And I actually, as I said early, that I prefer diversity over balance. But I prefer ACTUAL diversity.
If I have 10 options equally playable, that game ITS more diverse than a game that offer me 100 options where only 5 are useful.

But thats my impresion. And thats why I think that a game like Infinity or even Kings of War, with less options, offer more Diversity that the actual Warhammer 40k.

One example of my point: Codex: Tyranid Flyrant. One codex, only one real option.

^^This.
If there was a much more structured way of playing, than players would be forced to dig deeper into their armies to fill points, encouraging diversity.

As a bonus, it would cut down on the sheer number of special rules possible in a given game, thus speeding up games and cutting rules bloat

-

As far as AoS goes does it encourage mixed weapons in groups,? I would be curious if it would do the same in 40k.

 Galas wrote:
When you can pick between two things, and something its just plain better than the other option... are you really having two options?


Its 40k really that diverse? Diversity, when mixed with a so unbalanced system than 60% of the options are uterly useless compared with the rest, its a ilusion of Diversity.

And I actually, as I said early, that I prefer diversity over balance. But I prefer ACTUAL diversity.
If I have 10 options equally playable, that game IS more diverse than a game that offer me 100 options where only 5 are useful.

But thats my impresion. And thats why I think that a game like Infinity or even Kings of War, with less options, offer more Diversity that the actual Warhammer 40k.

One example of my point: Codex: Tyranid Flyrant. One codex, only one real option.

And that is a netlisting conclusion.

If you're looking at it that way, every single game out there just has a single unique #1 build at all times.
And a single unique #1 build per faction at all times.

As you have decided to restrict your choices to only #1, of course you only have one choice.

That's the same everywhere, no matter the game and including the very balanced competitive computer games.

The actual game, however, when enjoyed by people who are not trying to break it (a small minority), is incredibly vast.

 Crazyterran wrote:
I'm willing to bet there will be some modifier that unwieldy weapons will swing last.

Or Thunderhammers and such will be nerfed somehow.

come now, powerfists will be nerfed, because all races get them. Thunderhammers and Daemonhammers will not be affected.

 KommissarKiln wrote:

Spoiler:

 auticus wrote:
AOS points did not make AOS balanced. It made it more structured. The points themselves are, like most of GW's attempts at points, very flawed.

Also points in a vacuum don't work very well as a 100 point defensive unit may be worth 200-300 points in a scenario that is defensive in nature and may not be worth 50 points if that in a scenario where they have to move and be offensive. I say that having wrote azyr comp for AOS.

The deathstar thing - I hate deathstars. I hope those go away forever. I'd be ok with a single character being able to join a unit and then being able to target that character but it gets a Look Out Sir. Anything more than that just encourages the death star garbage thats been a staple in 40k (and fantasy) for the past couple of decades.

There's got to be a better way of dealing with Deathstars. Maybe it's not allowing ICs from separate Codices/supplements into a unit. Maybe it's a 2 meter wide exhaust port. I don't know. But a 1 IC per unit limit really hurts weaker armies, too. Painboy and a Warboss in the same Boyz/Warbiker unit? Bye bye. Priests and Primaris Psykers in IG blobs? Bye bye. It's not particularly elegant of a fix and arguably hurts weaker armies more than stronger armies. Should we undergo a Sigmarization, not all ICs deserve to be stuck out in the open by themselves, especially force multipliers like aforementioned Painboy and Ministorum Priest. Whether super killy ICs are forced to go alone or force multiplier ICs are taken as upgrades to units, not all ICs should get the same treatment under an AoS-style rule set.

GW could invent a new character type, so we have ICs of which you can only have one in a unit, and ICs of which you can have more than one in a unit. So Librarians and Chaos Lords would be type 1 and painboyz, primaris psykers and inquisitorial henchmen become type 2. Hey presto, you can have the best of both worlds!

 corpuschain wrote:

 KommissarKiln wrote:

Spoiler:

 auticus wrote:
AOS points did not make AOS balanced. It made it more structured. The points themselves are, like most of GW's attempts at points, very flawed.

Also points in a vacuum don't work very well as a 100 point defensive unit may be worth 200-300 points in a scenario that is defensive in nature and may not be worth 50 points if that in a scenario where they have to move and be offensive. I say that having wrote azyr comp for AOS.

The deathstar thing - I hate deathstars. I hope those go away forever. I'd be ok with a single character being able to join a unit and then being able to target that character but it gets a Look Out Sir. Anything more than that just encourages the death star garbage thats been a staple in 40k (and fantasy) for the past couple of decades.

There's got to be a better way of dealing with Deathstars. Maybe it's not allowing ICs from separate Codices/supplements into a unit. Maybe it's a 2 meter wide exhaust port. I don't know. But a 1 IC per unit limit really hurts weaker armies, too. Painboy and a Warboss in the same Boyz/Warbiker unit? Bye bye. Priests and Primaris Psykers in IG blobs? Bye bye. It's not particularly elegant of a fix and arguably hurts weaker armies more than stronger armies. Should we undergo a Sigmarization, not all ICs deserve to be stuck out in the open by themselves, especially force multipliers like aforementioned Painboy and Ministorum Priest. Whether super killy ICs are forced to go alone or force multiplier ICs are taken as upgrades to units, not all ICs should get the same treatment under an AoS-style rule set.

GW could invent a new character type, so we have ICs of which you can only have one in a unit, and ICs of which you can have more than one in a unit. So Librarians and Chaos Lords would be type 1 and painboyz, primaris psykers and inquisitorial henchmen become type 2. Hey presto, you can have the best of both worlds!

One of them is called Roboute Guilliman

Well would you fething look at that. People complain that GW doesn't listen, and they start to do so, then we got a vocal majority saying the game needs a total reboot so that's what they're going to attempt.

What harm is it really going to do? AoS is pretty balanced based off the main posts I see here that don't disparage it because it isn't WHF and that they BLEW IT UP!!!
Might as well see what the change brings.

morgoth wrote:

 Galas wrote:
When you can pick between two things, and something its just plain better than the other option... are you really having two options?


Its 40k really that diverse? Diversity, when mixed with a so unbalanced system than 60% of the options are uterly useless compared with the rest, its a ilusion of Diversity.

And I actually, as I said early, that I prefer diversity over balance. But I prefer ACTUAL diversity.
If I have 10 options equally playable, that game IS more diverse than a game that offer me 100 options where only 5 are useful.

But thats my impresion. And thats why I think that a game like Infinity or even Kings of War, with less options, offer more Diversity that the actual Warhammer 40k.

One example of my point: Codex: Tyranid Flyrant. One codex, only one real option.

And that is a netlisting conclusion.

If you're looking at it that way, every single game out there just has a single unique #1 build at all times.
And a single unique #1 build per faction at all times.

As you have decided to restrict your choices to only #1, of course you only have one choice.

That's the same everywhere, no matter the game and including the very balanced competitive computer games.

The actual game, however, when enjoyed by people who are not trying to break it (a small minority), is incredibly vast.

I'm one of those that always use a giant in his armys so I'm far from the netlist and competitive player mindset

But we are speaking here of the competitive type of player. And you are correct that always will be something that its the number 1 in the "meta" of the game.

But its very different when the second "build/hero/unit" whatever its 5% less powerful than the number 1, and when the second one is 60% less powerfull and the last one its like a toddler fighting Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in WWE.

 Vash108 wrote:
As far as AoS goes does it encourage mixed weapons in groups,? I would be curious if it would do the same in 40k.

Yes and no.

There are some units that can take mixed weapons; i.e. "Some models in the unit can have swords and shields while others can have spears and shields". For the most part you're looking at something like:

A unit of Dudebros can choose to take Dudehammers and Dudeshields, Dudeswords and Dudeshields, or Dudehammers and Dudeswords. The Dudebrah gets to make an additional attack/hits or wounds betterer with his Dudehammer or Dudesword.
1 in 10 Dudebros can take a Dudegreathammer/Greatsword.

That's the kind of setup we tend to see right now.

morgoth wrote:

 Galas wrote:
When you can pick between two things, and something its just plain better than the other option... are you really having two options?


Its 40k really that diverse? Diversity, when mixed with a so unbalanced system than 60% of the options are uterly useless compared with the rest, its a ilusion of Diversity.

And I actually, as I said early, that I prefer diversity over balance. But I prefer ACTUAL diversity.
If I have 10 options equally playable, that game IS more diverse than a game that offer me 100 options where only 5 are useful.

But thats my impresion. And thats why I think that a game like Infinity or even Kings of War, with less options, offer more Diversity that the actual Warhammer 40k.

One example of my point: Codex: Tyranid Flyrant. One codex, only one real option.

And that is a netlisting conclusion.

If you're looking at it that way, every single game out there just has a single unique #1 build at all times.
And a single unique #1 build per faction at all times.

As you have decided to restrict your choices to only #1, of course you only have one choice.

That's the same everywhere, no matter the game and including the very balanced competitive computer games.

The actual game, however, when enjoyed by people who are not trying to break it (a small minority), is incredibly vast.

When played in a casual setting 40k breaks all the time. Its more effort to not break it than it is to break it so often, otherwise this just seems to end up being the same "your playing it wrong"

morgoth wrote:

Look at SC2, it's infinitely more balanced than any board game and a lot less diverse than 40K, yet there aren't 37 different builds for each faction.
It's great to want diversity, it's almost impossible to offer balance within diversity.

I like diversity of models, but not necessarily rules. Therefore I can see a diverse model range existing with a simple ruleset if we lump certain models into categories.
For example, we could lump all space marine special characters into a category called 'space marine special characters', who all have the same rules. Then you have one set of rules, but lots of models that could represent that unit. This means that GW could release new models without having to release rules updates, and players can play their favourite models without having to jeopardise their chances of winning. You could have unit options to represent their different wargear, but in simplified manner, so Calgar has two power fists and Lysander has a thunder hammer and storm shield, for example.
Other categories could be:
space marine light vehicles (rhino, razorback, landspeeder)
space marine support vehicles (stalker, predator, whirlwind)
imperial guard support vehcicles (leman russ, hydra)
and so on. There could be some options with the entry to represent guns or flying, but I think you'll recognise that having one codex entry for space marine support tanks with some options for it is simpler than four or five entries with different options and points costs. This also has the benefit of being easier to balance because if you create a new faction, you can give it the same categories and just create models to fill the categories. Obviously some factions will lack certain categories and gain others, but across various factions, all codices will have similar look entries but with different weapons or options.


PS I haven't actually fleshed this out in detail - it's just an idea, but I think it represents some out of the box thinking that could improve 40k.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:
As far as AoS goes does it encourage mixed weapons in groups,? I would be curious if it would do the same in 40k.

Yes and no.

There are some units that can take mixed weapons; i.e. "Some models in the unit can have swords and shields while others can have spears and shields". For the most part you're looking at something like:

A unit of Dudebros can choose to take Dudehammers and Dudeshields, Dudeswords and Dudeshields, or Dudehammers and Dudeswords. The Dudebrah gets to make an additional attack/hits or wounds betterer with his Dudehammer or Dudesword.
1 in 10 Dudebros can take a Dudegreathammer/Greatsword.

That's the kind of setup we tend to see right now.

So it would probably work more or less like it does now with 1 in 5 dudebros can take a special weapon.

Or bring back them being 2d6 and have multiwounds. Allow for flexibility.

 Galas wrote:
...
Maybe, you know, the worst fault of 40k is that it is a game that don't know what it want to be? A game where Titans kill infantry platoons in the droves but then you have different weapon profiles for the weapons your squad leader of that same infantry platoon its wearing.

Maybe thats the reason no other game with the "scale" of 40k exist, and thats why 40k its so unbalanced. Because other people know that this is a path with no good ending.

Back in 5th and earlier 6th edition, Apocalypse was the only place to play with Super-heavies and Titans, and I felt it was better for it. I would much rather have different scaled sizes of the game rather than the risk of dealing with Super-heavies and Gargantuan Creatures in regular sized games and have no possible counter for it. 30K even has a restriction that the army must be at least so many points, and then there is a further army percentage restriction. If GW were to give of "3 ways to play", I would like to different scales of game over Matched/Open/Narrative. I want to see Kill Team for skirmish games, standard games for larger games (up to so many points), and Apocalypse all rolled into the main book (or equivalent General's Handbook) so as to give players the options to play the games they want.

Anyone else remember the old Battle Missions book from 4th and 5th Edition? I liked that book. Maybe I should dig out my old copy...

 corpuschain wrote:
GW could invent a new character type, so we have ICs of which you can only have one in a unit, and ICs of which you can have more than one in a unit. So Librarians and Chaos Lords would be type 1 and painboyz, primaris psykers and inquisitorial henchmen become type 2. Hey presto, you can have the best of both worlds!

I like this idea as well, and GW has played with it before in the past. Warhammer Fantasy had Heroes and Lords on top of Unit Champions. Warmahordes has Unit Attachments in addition to Solo models and Unit Leaders. Age of Sigmar just has loose characters aside from the squad sergeants. Heck, even in 40K we already had HQ characters, and then non-HQ Independent Characters that could be taken with a 0-3 limit (see the Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum Codexes [Codices?]).

 Vash108 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:
As far as AoS goes does it encourage mixed weapons in groups,? I would be curious if it would do the same in 40k.

Yes and no.

There are some units that can take mixed weapons; i.e. "Some models in the unit can have swords and shields while others can have spears and shields". For the most part you're looking at something like:

A unit of Dudebros can choose to take Dudehammers and Dudeshields, Dudeswords and Dudeshields, or Dudehammers and Dudeswords. The Dudebrah gets to make an additional attack/hits or wounds betterer with his Dudehammer or Dudesword.
1 in 10 Dudebros can take a Dudegreathammer/Greatsword.

That's the kind of setup we tend to see right now.

So it would probably work more or less like it does now with 1 in 5 dudebros can take a special weapon.

More or less. Some units have options for SgtDudebro to make him a little more powerful. So, again, not much different.

Excited about the changes, and happy that I guessed right for most of them. The error I see a lot of people not in favor of them making is they are assuming these changes with today's ruleset. The thunder hammers on charge issue, it's very unlikely that thunder hammers will stay the same, who knows maybe unwieldy weapons will allow only one attack, and that attack inflicts multiple wounds to a single target, so it's great for monster/vehicle hunting but so so at clearing infantry. They hinted at changes like this when they said weapons will now perform more like they do in fluff.

I'm hoping the next reveal is the vehicle changes, the vehicle rules are awful in 40k, and giving them the AoS treatment where they function more like MCs with a toughness value, armor saves, and a large number of wounds seems like a good fix.

Speaking of saves, one save choose which would also be a very welcome change, choose your armor/invul/cover save, roll it and that's it, no FnP, No LoS, No RP, save or take the wounds. FnP and RP can be done in different ways that do not increase unit durability in a multiplicative manner. Having played flesh eater courts, I think that is a wonderful way to do repair protocols, tough guys have multiple wounds and heal every round, and single wound units can be replaced. No shooting at a unit for five rounds and not getting a single wound thru. FnP could become a beserker-like thing where after taking a fatal wound they are not immediately removed from the board, instead, they get to act on their next turn and then they expire. Kind of like Dogged from infinity.

I've always found striking in order to be an annoying and silly mechanic. A marine swinging an axe is so cumbersome that five men armed with knives all get to strike at him before he can land a single blow, it's just dumb. Unfortunately it has become something of a norm for wargames. The proposed 8th ed system is no better: A squad of guys with bayonets fixed, expecting a charge will be half wiped out before they can strike back?

There are much better ways of handling combat. LOTR did it well with opposed dice rolls. Combat should be simultaneous, except in special circumstances. "First Strike" has it's place -models with spears and stealth attacks, for example, are justified in being able to get their blows in first. It should be a limited special rule though.

Hopeful for this - there are lot of good things in AOS that arer awful in 40k at the moment

Monsters are much more thematic and better rules than what we are stuck with in 40k and it will be interesting to see how they handle trasnprt vehicles with the new dwarf airships.

Rending is nice and simple as is BattleShock

My memory is escaping me. I'm trying my best to remember who had their signature stating AOS was 40K players' warning, and if it was on this board or one of the others. THAT dude gets a cookie.

If this goes down the way AOS did, I may be able to bulk up my 3rd Ed. armies really fast and really cheap. That's the only thing I'm looking forward to. And I'm cautiously waiting to see how the playerbase changes. If we bleed more than we bring in, then I will be stuck with ebay to find my toys. THAT won't be good at all, but maybe it's necessary at this point.

better sooner then later.
300+ pages rule books are outdated and unwanted.

if you cant learn how to play any mini game whitin an afternoon, then the rules are unessesary complex.

Back in 5th and earlier 6th edition, Apocalypse was the only place to play with Super-heavies and Titans, and I felt it was better for it

True. The problem was, and GW obviously saw this on their bottomline, was that few wanted to deviate from tournament standard, which APOC was not a part of, and they weren't selling the super heavy models because few wanted them if they weren't tournament standard.

At that point, you push APOC events at your stores. Our stores did that locally and had sizeable turnout.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've always found striking in order to be an annoying and silly mechanic. A marine swinging an axe is so cumbersome that five men armed with knives all get to strike at him before he can land a single blow, it's just dumb. Unfortunately it has become something of a norm for wargames. The proposed 8th ed system is no better: A squad of guys with bayonets fixed, expecting a charge will be half wiped out before they can strike back?

There are much better ways of handling combat. LOTR did it well with opposed dice rolls. Combat should be simultaneous, except in special circumstances. "First Strike" has it's place -models with spears and stealth attacks, for example, are justified in being able to get their blows in first. It should be a limited special rule though.

Honestly, I think Initiative is such a terrible stat for immersion... You've got crazy good Dark Eldar dude in one corner, with Init 9, WS 7 or 8 or whatever, the guy would basically be impossible to touch for anyone not truly remarkable themselves, and some poor schmuck still hits him half the friggin time. why?

The guy is so blazing fast you can't even see his moves, yet he only manages to strike once, when a Powerfist dude manages just as many attacks in the same time ? wtf.

I like the proposed change of "chargers" strike first, it's going to make things a lot simpler.

Best would probably be nobody goes first ... anyway, getting rid of the nearly useless I stat sounds like a good thing to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
better sooner then later.
300+ pages rule books are outdated and unwanted.

if you cant learn how to play any mini game whitin an afternoon, then the rules are unessesary complex.

True that.

Maybe an afternoon is a bit short-ish, but when most people struggle with most things even after ten games, there is something terrible going on.

I have been playing 40k since 1988 and completely lost any interest during 6:th and 7:th. Recently me and my son has started playing Age of Sigmar and it actually is a fun game!
I would be interested in a complete reboot of 40k, especially if it will make my orks playable again.

 Galef wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Galef wrote:
Whatever happens, I really hope they get rid of the "take whatever you want" for structured play. Unbound is fine for that, but structure play should not be Unbound + tax = bonuses.

Something like only 1 CAD or Codex equivalent allowed. Formations are now taken are a "slot" within that detachment, rather than as stand-alone choices.
Only 1 "2nd faction detachment" is allowed. This would be Allied detachments (with 1 Formation slot available) or unique detachments like Assassins and Knights.
If you want to take 3 or more Factions, your army instantly becomes Unbound and loses all command benefits AND Formation bonuses.

That would really cut down on power builds. Want to add a Riptide wing to your Eldar CAD? You need to take an Allied Detahcment with 1 Tau HQ and 1 Troop to "unlock" it.
This is how "structure" or "matched" play should be.

None of that would matter if all units were fairly costed.

I am not worried about it fixing balance, I just miss the days of knowing what to expect from an opponent. When you can take units from 3+ Factions and unlimited detachments, "traditional" weaknesses are hard to exploit. I can no longer say "Oh you're playing X army, I know exactly how that plays" because no one play X army anymore. They play XYZ armies.
Armies should have strengths and weaknesses and you shouldn't be able to take just the strengths of a different faction to plug the holes in others.
Plus, structured play like this would encourage more thematic armies, instead of cherry picking what is good from multiple armies.

-

I don't really see a problem with that.

I just wish armies could have their playstyle AND have weaknesses. What do you do against current lists like Riptides that have interceptor/skyfire? Can't walk up the board or you get shot to death. Can't deep strike or you lose your models. Can't have a jink based army because Tau have ignores cover spamming more than any other army.

Meanwhile you can't even play Imperial Guard at a tournament because they're so bad.

Why are we not even willing to give potential army balance a chance? People are seriously so up in arms about a few rules that they'd rather jump ship then to have Orks be good.

But the naysayers won't leave, they'll stick around like jaded cops waiting for their pension. Look at how many people whine on dakkadakka about 40k rules/tactics when they haven't even played since 5th edition. Its just going to get worse.