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It's pretty sad that the game has hit the point that so many players are literally saying "well, anything is better than this"

Fafnir wrote:

AoS' tactical depth is leagues better than 40k, which is often just won at the list building phase, with armies pretty much playing themselves past that point. Sure, you'll roll a lot of dice and go through a million phases, but most of that is just going through the motions of dice for dice' sake.

Every single good 40K player disagrees with you.

You can give an electro deathstar to an average player, which isn't even a hard build to play, and he'll get creamed by good players with bottom tier armies.

If the list did most of it, we'd know by now.

morgoth wrote:

Fafnir wrote:

AoS' tactical depth is leagues better than 40k, which is often just won at the list building phase, with armies pretty much playing themselves past that point. Sure, you'll roll a lot of dice and go through a million phases, but most of that is just going through the motions of dice for dice' sake.

Every single good 40K player disagrees with you.

You can give an electro deathstar to an average player, which isn't even a hard build to play, and he'll get creamed by good players with bottom tier armies.

If the list did most of it, we'd know by now.

Really?
Seems you play a different 40k than the rest.

40K has genuine tactical depth, but the level of game literacy required to play it well is out of all proportion to the amount of fun or tactical depth, for most people.

The attached warscroll is what I assume is the Age of Sigmar corollary to the 40K Tactical Marine. So presumably this would be similar-ish to what 8th edition would look like.

no ballistic skill chart, no strength vs toughness chart, armor save modifiers listed on weapon profile, special rules listed on the unit warscroll.

I like AOS personally and if they make 40k more like this I'll be getting a new army for it as well.

I just had a Horrible thought. What if 8th edition uses the EXACT same rules as AoS, putting out new Warscolls for the existing 40K models? Then they write some fluff that the AoS Realms exist within the 40K universe and the 2 have become aware of each other.

AoS and 40K could play like Warmachine & Hordes....ugh.

 Galef wrote:
I just had a Horrible thought. What if 8th edition uses the EXACT same rules as AoS, putting out new Warscolls for the existing 40K models? Then they write some fluff that the AoS Realms exist within the 40K universe and the 2 have become aware of each other.

AoS and 40K could play like Warmachine & Hordes....ugh.

Paranoia and fanfictions aren't a valid source for guesses. To begin with even with the announcements, 40k would play differently from AOS.

 Galef wrote:
I just had a Horrible thought. What if 8th edition uses the EXACT same rules as AoS, putting out new Warscolls for the existing 40K models? Then they write some fluff that the AoS Realms exist within the 40K universe and the 2 have become aware of each other.

AoS and 40K could play like Warmachine & Hordes....ugh.

..So like the really old days when Chaos Space Marines came over through the portals from time to time? Fantasy used to be at one point just another world in the 40k universe.

It seems to me too that the list building phase is where most of the game is won, at least in my experiences. But the problems in my experience lies not with the lists, but the players that abuse the broken system in order to win constantly. I have sworn off of tournaments and just stick to games with certain players, and I feel so much better about my gaming experiences.

Sure, the current game has issues, but no change will get rid of WAAC TFG style players. A new edition might distract them, but they will always find a way to play their way. While I am excited for a new edition, I am still hesitant to start going back to tournaments again.

 auticus wrote:

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.

Doesn't 30k have a 25% rule when it comes to Lords of War? As in your Lord of War units can't comprise more than 25% of your total points. That would keep a lot of the bigger stuff out of normal sized games and it would help keep people from taking formations of some of the less expensive Lords of War.

Of course there's the related issue of the various Lords of War needing to be costed fairly.

I have found that tournaments bring out the worst in some people.

That has nothing to do with the game system or balance or anything.

I have won games where I had the worse list by a long shot and would've won by turn 3 if the tables had been turned, and I have lost games against better players where my list was massively better than theirs but I just lacked another 20 games wirh it to drive it properly.

List bulding is important, fun, and rightly so, but tournaments have proven time and time again that's just a small part of the game.

The single biggest factor in 40K seems to be skill, followed closely by luck, and then list building.

Good players place high consistently, even with subpar lists or armies, whereas finals have seen weaker army lists pull an unlikely win thanks to the dice god.

I'll never get this idea that AoS is more tactical and less likely to result in a one-sided curb stomp than 40k.
To each there own but I dont see which games you are playing or watching.

morgoth wrote:

Fafnir wrote:

AoS' tactical depth is leagues better than 40k, which is often just won at the list building phase, with armies pretty much playing themselves past that point. Sure, you'll roll a lot of dice and go through a million phases, but most of that is just going through the motions of dice for dice' sake.

Every single good 40K player disagrees with you.

You can give an electro deathstar to an average player, which isn't even a hard build to play, and he'll get creamed by good players with bottom tier armies.

If the list did most of it, we'd know by now.

So where are the bottom tier armies winning GTs. It takes a good list and a good player to finish in the winner's circle, the top lists are few in number and universally exploit unbalanced units/formations. Here is why it matters, at the top level of play you have a large enough population that skill levels are somewhat homogenized (certainly more than you would find at a local meta). This allows the other two factors Luck, and army list, to have a much larger effect on the outcome. Since luck will always return the mean, that leaves army lists as a deciding factor. When we see such a small number of army lists at the top, we know balance is off. This is an important feedback mechanism for the game, it gives us a clear picture of where adjustments are needed.

Since skill is so wildly different in local metas, and it plays such a large role in the game outcome, it makes it hard for local only players to determine what's balanced and how much of a boost someone is getting from having a strong army list. This leads to all sort of weird ideas about game balance and the role various factors play. This means when talking about balance it's best to take a step back from your personal experience and look at the top of the game. The top shows there are some clear issues with game balance, and people who say list is all that matters are oversimplifying the issue, but there really is an issue there.

The good player needs too much luck with the lower tier army to survive the gauntlet. Generally speaking.

There are inherent difficulties in balancing lists when there are so many options. We know this both from game theory and from practical observation of such games, 40K included. It would be sufficiently time-consuming to balance such a game in the initial design process, that it's effectively impossible to do so, even with extensive playtesting. This is why games like Magic: The Gathering, or MOBA games, use ongoing rules tweaks and potentially just outright ban unbalanced options or combos. GW doesn't care about any of that stuff -- they don't even do the initial playtesting, really. So they are better off giving us a simpler ruleset, as long as it has decent rules and deep strategy.

40k has lots of options, but huge swaths of them are very similar, but differ in easily comparable ways.

 Galef wrote:
I just had a Horrible thought. What if 8th edition uses the EXACT same rules as AoS, putting out new Warscolls for the existing 40K models? Then they write some fluff that the AoS Realms exist within the 40K universe and the 2 have become aware of each other.

AoS and 40K could play like Warmachine & Hordes....ugh.

Sounds good to me - I honestly don;t know why they did not do that from day one

 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.

Spears... Like lances? Hunting lances?!?

Rough rider buff/new OP unit confirmed

Martel732 wrote:
40k has lots of options, but huge swaths of them are very similar, but differ in easily comparable ways.

Yes, but "easily comparable" doesn't mean "easily playtestable". You get emergent complexity once you start looking at 12 factions, maybe 20 or 30 units each (even if many are similar), 1500+ point games, and optional wargear. It gets worse when you add formations. There is a very high chance that a degenerate strategy will emerge -- the one essentially unbeatable list, unbeatable even by other high-level players. So you might as well not have any options at all...

The single biggest factor in 40K seems to be skill, followed closely by luck, and then list building.

Wow. I have never tought that this day will come.

Actually, to me, with the most basic guidelines like don't overextend your trops, go for objetives and don't fail in the bait-units, W40k its one of the less skilled heavy wargames or even tabletop games I known. My ranking of "things that are important to win 40k" its literal the inverse of yours.

You can call that Tournament are a small portion of the game and that where you play subpar lists all go rank 1 with good players. But just look at the list of the bigger tournaments and you will se that all the good list are clones and all the broken spams we all know. 80% (Totally accurate percentage) of the games of 40k are decided in the List and Army selection.

And a game so based in dice rolling as 40k can't be really a skill heavy game.

 greyknight12 wrote:
It's pretty sad that the game has hit the point that so many players are literally saying "well, anything is better than this"

I am of the mindset there is literally nothing they can accidentally do to make Grey Knights worse. We got nowhere to go but up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I agree the order for winning in 40k is

-List building
-Luck
-Skill

 Quickjager wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
It's pretty sad that the game has hit the point that so many players are literally saying "well, anything is better than this"

I am of the mindset there is literally nothing they can accidentally do to make Grey Knights worse. We got nowhere to go but up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I agree the order for winning in 40k is

-List building
-Luck
-Skill

Play chaos... there is always farther down the rabbits hole to go.

Also AoS is not a tactical game it is literally a move to the center and start rolling. People are fighting in the center 99 of your guys vs 1 of theirs shoot him your bolt stormers or storm bolters what ever it is for sigmarines. Do not worry your arrows disappear when they hit your guys they only hurt them "smart fricking arrows".. Try to make your army split nope The magic boss fields make sure your general needs to be in the center for synergy.

Want scenery nope peek a boo elves are a thing now.... so much fun

At least list building is almost a thing in 40k for aos people are to dumb to do it so they have pre made lists you pick.

Jager, as a nids player I agree lol.


In terms of the way it's going, I rather they burn it down and rebuild it again.
Currently the rules are a joke.
The fact they need constant errata for said rules as they weren't thought out says it all.

Granted sometimes there is oversight, but around 30 questions per book with easily triple that not answered?





In terms of order, list building is key.
Throw a new player a tournament eldar list and run them through it for half hour and they shouldn't have many issues in games again good players with low tier armies.

Only so much skill can compensate for poor units.
Being a good general will make them better, sure.
It won't however have them competing as some other units do.

Luck is also highly relevant as I have seen countless games won and lost on a dice roll in the last turn.
Hell, seizing the initiative is huge for some armies and that is pure luck.

A gun line army can make or break depending on opponent and 1st turn.







Edit: ogre, you want want to look into AoS a bit more.
If your army is clumped in the middle then you have screwed up somewhere in the game.
Trying to grind through the centre will be an auto loss for most armies.

I do agree on the shooting into combat though and always hitting enemies.
That has bugged me from day 1.

Generally though AoS is a highly tactical game when played by 2 competent people.
The only time you should have multiple units in 1 place is if your removing a key unit or using a hammer and anvil.

Clumping just allows someone to flank you and pick of vulnerable or key parts of your army.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
There are inherent difficulties in balancing lists when there are so many options. We know this both from game theory and from practical observation of such games, 40K included. It would be sufficiently time-consuming to balance such a game in the initial design process, that it's effectively impossible to do so, even with extensive playtesting. This is why games like Magic: The Gathering, or MOBA games, use ongoing rules tweaks and potentially just outright ban unbalanced options or combos. GW doesn't care about any of that stuff -- they don't even do the initial playtesting, really. So they are better off giving us a simpler ruleset, as long as it has decent rules and deep strategy.

If they move to using freely available online warscrolls and a General's Handbook that is updated yearly like AoS then they'll have the ability to tweak point costs and unit rules on a regular basis. I'm not saying that they couldn't simplify things as well, just that the ability to tweak things without costing the players a lot of money can make fine-tuning a relatively complicated ruleset a lot easier.

 Jackal wrote:
Jager, as a nids player I agree lol.


In terms of the way it's going, I rather they burn it down and rebuild it again.
Currently the rules are a joke.
The fact they need constant errata for said rules as they weren't thought out says it all.

Granted sometimes there is oversight, but around 30 questions per book with easily triple that not answered?.

Can you really call it 30 questions when 6 of them are do my doors half to be open and can I throw it at the other player when I am mad?

OgreChubbs wrote:


At least list building is almost a thing in 40k for aos people are to dumb to do it so they have pre made lists you pick.

Wow.

At first I tought you were serious. Good trolling mate

 Galas wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:


At least list building is almost a thing in 40k for aos people are to dumb to do it so they have pre made lists you pick.

Wow.

At first I tought you were serious. Good trolling mate

He is.

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Galas wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:


At least list building is almost a thing in 40k for aos people are to dumb to do it so they have pre made lists you pick.

Wow.

At first I tought you were serious. Good trolling mate

He is.

Yeah he posts the same thing constantly when he discusses AoS, he's serious and has no real new material on the subject.

Play chaos... there is always farther down the rabbits hole to go.

Not even close to GK level's now, got a small boost thanks to Traitor Legions. Orks are the one's where you want to hit rock bottom.

I will adress one point , only because I saw it being used all the time.

If you see that all AoS games tend to end in a big fight in the middle, that its because its a game without objetives.

Did you ever played pitched battles in Fantasy? Its exactly the same. A big fight in the middle, maybe with more fast units flanking. Just like AoS.

And thats one of the bigger problems I saw in the old fantasy. Everyone played Pitchet battles! At least, here in Spain. That thing was the most boring type of battle!

 Galas wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:


At least list building is almost a thing in 40k for aos people are to dumb to do it so they have pre made lists you pick.

Wow.

At first I tought you were serious. Good trolling mate

So when you play ironjaws you dont pick a formation? Because I played them and you either ran ard fist
iron fist
or pig fist or what ever it was called.

You never just picked units. You picked a formation and ran those units.