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The problem with the current state is that each army that still doesn't have a codex can't compete, even in semi-competitive metas, I'm not even considering tournaments.

The current state of 40k is a game with 8-10 playable factions out of 20ish.

For me, that I own 3 armies that still must use the index, I must tailor a lot against armies that use codex. In 7th edition I had way more viable options. And I play Drukhari, Orks and Space Wolves, nothing that was overpowered.

Speaking about myself the current state of 40k is extremely bad because I'm basically forced to play a green tide with the orks and a gunline with drukhari, which are two styles that I really hate. However CA made SW a bit more viable, and I'm enjoying them for the first time in this edition.

A fun fact to start: when you calculate the dmg output of power sword, axe and maul you actually get the same result against most targets (there was an exception around T6 where the axe was slightly better).

I'll say the biggest improvement 7th has over 8th is simplicity to learn the basics. If you compare the rules for a basic unit of say jump assault marines are on 1-4 pages in 8th (sometimes 1 if the weapon profile is included on the sheat). in 7th you would have: 1 the basic profile, 2 the page with the options, 3 the page with the special weapons lists, 4 The weapon profile page (all of these still exist but 1 and 2 are always on the same page), 5 the USR's, 6 the unit type, 7 the USR associated woth the unit type, 8 army-wide special special rule (still in 8th).
8th reduced the amount of pages you need to consult by anything between 50% and 12.5% for a basic unit and that is not even counting old formation/ detachment bonusses tough I will say they have been moved to stratagems wich is a more in depth system if you ignore poor balance , I'll get to that later. And that page count is complicated bloat that in the end doesn't come down to much more then shove different buckets of dice around. Tough of course no dice based game system ever really does.
Reducing that page count drastically lowers the complexity of getting into the system tough. It doesn't reallly affect a veteran player, who among us would have a problem knowing the basic rules of a jump infantry model?

The biggest problem GW has with balance is the variety of ways people like to play 40K tough. As an example let's compare magicjuggler and Unit. Unit really wants to be able to use his3 baneblade list, whereas Magicjuggler wants to have a more skirmish style infanrty models fighting.
GW wants both to be able to use the 40k rule-set to make a legally viable (not as in chance to win but chance to play without cheating) in all 3 of its ways to play. And this leads to the main rule balance problem. It's just an insane amount of variables and GW wants these things to feel different. As far as GW is concerned (and this has been covered in white dwarf etc.. ) the game supports the models not the other way around. In their own words they are a modelling company not a games company.
Why do power axes/mauls/swords have differtent rules if the dmg output is functionally the same? So the feeling of playing axe is different then the feeling of playing sword.

Another factor is that identifying a problem is the easiest (tough most often forgotten) step of problem solving. Finding a solution is harder. A lot of people on dakka (or anywhere probably including GW) know where the main balance concerns are, but can we agree on a solution?

More accurately, I'm an MSE type of player. Meaning I like having lots of smaller units that can punch above their own weight, as being in multiple places does afford a certain tactical flexibility. When I ran Chaos in 7th, I used a Warband. So two small Marine units, two Plasma Termicide units, two small Bike units of Slaanesh (I gave the Champions Powerlances, since I got VoTLW for free anyway, and figure most Marine units don't tool for melee), and two Helbrutes. Not Havocs since I found them static alphastrike bait, but Helbrutes for more midfielding.

I skipped 6th and got back into 7th, so when I first tried it, I heard all these horror stories about fliers and superheavies, and somehow I found that really never added up. Yes, aircraft could only be hit on 6s, but they had to Reserve, and had limited fire arcs and maneuver. Sure, Eldar fliers had Vector Dancer but they were also fragile! I never particularly considered Stormravens either unfair or absolute crap, just a relatively middling unit that didn't see competitive play due to the need for rapid midpoint scoring.

Likewise, maybe it was because I skipped the earlier parts of 7th with the Adamantine Lance, but Knights didn't scare me too much. I remember one game versus a Knight, where I summoned a unit of Daemonettes to surround it for a turn (Fleet and +3 Run to reverse-bubblewrap it), while I focused on killing supporting elements. What *was* funny was I was also able to prevent the Knight from turning around to counterfire, due to its oval base. When the time was right, I used Ghoststorm to teleport Melta units to "finish the job" at pointblank.

I did use summoning, but the whole "recursive factory" was definitely something I found wouldn't work. Recursive zombies were easy to counter in WHFB if you brought enough choppy and dakka, and 40k exceeds Fantasy in both. Furthermore, the investment in points for Warp Charge tended to outpace the cost of just buying those units up-front.

Personally, the way I view it is the way I played (lots of small units, supports, elites) should be viable, alongside hordeplay, or taking a few superheavies. However, for that to work, the game shouldn't attempt to create a false equivalence between the units from all three playstyles, especially since in some cases that might ironically create its own inequivalence. For example, take vehicle weapons: In 7th, they had limited fire arcs. In 8th, you measure a single point from the hull. It looks equal at first since not a few proponents would argue that if you're for vehicles having fire arcs, you "must" be in favor of every unit having a fire arc and that would slow the game down. A strawman of course, even if you consider that certain units (ex: Riptides) would have gotten less hate with vehicle-like LOS. The detractors will note that a single vehicle has the firepower of a small infantry squad, only focused on one model. Due to the rules for casualty allocation, a Stormraven gets its full firepower against a 10-man Tacsquad as long as it is in range of *one* of the Tacmarines, but the inverse is explicitly untrue. Thus a performance inequivalence has been introduced in the name of equivalency! (Similar arguments can be made for flattened damage and AP penalizing elite armies over hordes, Psychic Focus favoring Magnus over other casters, etc).

Rather than false equivalency between armies, a more proper faction calculus should be established. There should be more "tech" ways to win a game, besides going for the brute force win. Sure, going first, getting uninterrupted Plasma Drops and killing your foe's firepower on your first turn is efficient but it's incredibly shallow. There's not the same degree of satisfaction as using a terrain-movement power to steal your opponent's Void Shield, using Tank Shock to shove enemy units out of cover, etc. The game should have a more "robust" ruleset that allows for improvised rather than bespoke tactics, and makes units feel and act distinctly (ex: Tanks shouldn't be allowed to Tokyo Drift or shoot from their treads), and I believe that can be done even while cutting out a lot of the bloat from 7th and 8th.

 Peregrine wrote:
Dumpster fire. 8th is a monument to bad game design that only looks good because 7th was somehow even worse. But TBH my biggest complaint isn't even the balance issues. It's the complete lack of strategic depth, over-homogenization, and obsessive D6 rolling. I can fix balance issues by agreeing to tone down the most abusive lists if it's necessary to have an enjoyable game with someone. I can't fix the issues with the core rules without writing an entirely new game.

Dude, I love reading your posts these days.

Arbitrator wrote:
Templates needs to come back and fast, vehicle facings too. Hell, anything that adds a splash of depth to positioning instead of turning the game into 'run your guys up the board, mosh pit in the middle and hope you brought the more powerful units'.

Please no. Templates didn't add to the game enough to justify the arguing about how they scatter, what's under them and moke the game slower, because every. single. model. has. to. be 2'. away. from. the. next. model. Ant the en result isn't that different from just randomising.

Formosa wrote:

 Galas wrote:
To be honest I agree with many of the 8th edition critizism here, but I can't understand one.
Why is people saying that 8th edition is complicated? My 10 year old niece learned to play just with the basic missions of "First Strike", and my 14 year-old small brother was capable of playing a full game agaisnt him just because he learned the rules of the game watching us play two games.
They did some mistakes, of course, but the game was pretty smooth.

Compared to a lot of other games I've played it's still pretty complicated in terms of word count, not as complicated as infinity or something but still up there.

The thing that boggles me though is people saying it's simpler that 7th, it's not, it's a side shift at best

It is simpler. the core is easy to grasp and then bolt things on top of. There might not be less rules total, but the rules you need are easy easy fro everyone and accessible for your own stuff. You don't need to understand every rule of every unit to play the game.

Vankraken wrote:For better or for worse having your BRB with the rules for how a bike worked or what the melta rule does makes it universal across all armies and gives a standardization for the game. In 7th if a trukk explodes its going to act the same as a Hammerhead, Ghost Ark, Rhino, Leman Russ Tank (the Primarch explodes in a different way ), Wave Serpent, Raider, Land Speeder, etc. I don't have to look up every single vehicle to see what you need to roll for it to explode and how much damage that explosion does because in 7th it was standardized. Same thing for rules like melta, fearless, relentless, etc where in 7th if you just say the special rule then the vast majority of players instantly know what that does. With 8th you cannot have proper rules complexity because they have to spell out how each rule works on each datasheet entry. Granted some of the old special rules where just bloat like Soulfire but trimming it down and having a few core special rules makes way more sense than what GW did.

No. Please no. List of special rules that are, in turn, lists of special rules spread over several books was horrible. Having all the rules for each unit in on place is so much better.
Takes less looking up too.

Templates prevented Conscript/Ork Boy Napoleonics. And spacing out for max coherency is still a thing, due to congalines, setting up bubblewrap, and the odd beam Psyker power/Orbital Bombardment. Play with better opponents.

USRs were not the problem. Redundant USRs (Stealth vs Shrouded) or USRs with nonindicative names (Crusader vs Zealot) were, as was a lack of "Meta-USRs." Case in point, Camo Cloaks gave +1 Cover instead of Stealth so a Lord Commissar couldn't give an entire squad Stealth. Wheras Warmachine would differentiate Stealth vs Granted[Stealth] or Field Marshal[Pathfinder] or any other degree of second-degree rule composites. USRs enable futureproofing, and not answering the same question twice.

Also, Keywords are interesting but GW shows how not to use them. Case in point, FAQing Grey Hunter Terminators so "they count as though they have the Terminator Keyword," rather than using variable scoping. Or making Stratagems and abilities work off of regex matches instead of scoping Keywords to weapons. Apparently Kustom Mega-Blastas and Starcannons are not plasma weapons. It's a good thing Haemotrope Reactors are only usable by Infantry or else you would get Carnifexes that can use them but not Exocrines, since Exocrines don't shoot Plasma, they shoot Plasmic. And Promethium can fuel change itself, as long as it's Flickering Flames of Tzeentch, and not Pink Fire of Tzeentch, since Fire is not Flame, but Flame is change.

Zealot wasn't a USR, it was blurb that said use these 2 USRs.

Hordes are powerfull now because there isn't a weapon desigend to deal with just them. Any weapon that has the shots to eat through a horde can also use it to chip away elites/tougher models. We need weapons that gain shots based on amount of models in an enemy unit, that would help

I'll say what I always say on these types of threads, but if you haven't already done so, get yourself into Bolt Action.

It's the same scale as 40k, rulebooks are cheap, and the design team is the ex-GW staff from yesteryear: Alessio C, Paul Sawyer, and the God-Emperor himself, Rick P.

Warlord Games' own model range is superb and well priced, but because it's historics, there are a ton of rival companies out there making high quality minis at very competitive prices. Minis are in both plastic and metal. And the alternate unit activation system is very good. It's not perfect, but it's a damn good game.

Bolt Action: the game that 40k could have been.

Earth127 wrote:
Zealot wasn't a USR, it was blurb that said use these 2 USRs.

Hordes are powerfull now because there isn't a weapon desigend to deal with just them. Any weapon that has the shots to eat through a horde can also use it to chip away elites/tougher models. We need weapons that gain shots based on amount of models in an enemy unit, that would help

Zealot=Hatred+Fearless, and I get that you could Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V all instances of Zealot with Hatred+Fearless (except for one Word Bearers Warlord Trait, but that's an extreme edgecase). The point is, the rules "sound" similar but do completely different things. Ditto Furious Charge versus Rage. Making it "Charge Bonus[+1 Attack] or Charge Bonus[+1 Strength] would both cut down on redundant USRs, and provide a central rule to handle rulings on. For example, "how do abilities that nullify Charge Bonuses work" as opposed to having to say "negates bonuses from abilities that grant bonuses on the charge." ("But what about Crusaders? They reroll to hit anytime they are engaged by a new unit in melee. Do they still get the bonus on a charge, since the ability is not being granted by charging?" Now imagine multiplying this question across multiple bespoke rules).

Regarding hordes, you mean like...AOEs? Incidentally, weapons that hit based on the number of models "in a unit" fail to also model the fact that an AOE could hit multiple units. You know, Heavy Flamers on a Chimera while toasting the squad in the middle. It's now either or, a randomshot machinegun.

 Arbitrator wrote:
It's a poor game that only seems better because 7th was just -THAT- bad and people were desperate for anything else that it seems amazing by comparison.

Of course, because 90% of people haven't played anything but a GW game (and 40k at that), their only really comparison to what makes it 'so good' are other poorly thought out, imbalanced GW games and editions.

It's not awful, but it's not very good either and the cracks are already seriously showing. Chapter Approved shows GW still have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Templates needs to come back and fast, vehicle facings too. Hell, anything that adds a splash of depth to positioning instead of turning the game into 'run your guys up the board, mosh pit in the middle and hope you brought the more powerful units'.

I think with Index release GW had half a clue of what they were doing - only because they had involved a non-GW playtesting community. Now that they are back in their Ivory Tower cranking out crap rules, they're heading right back to the same flaming pit that was their previous rule sets. The recent jazz hands with conscripts and commisars shows they're overreacting without proper playtesting before they release anything post-index into the wild. If they'd let people play for a YEAR with the indexes before starting up Codexes again, I'd be decently reassured that they've done more than simply wanting to "power up" the game and just entice everyone into quick-buying the next shiny available from them.

They did the same thing with AOS though. When it was just the Grand Alliance books, things were fairly okay (still some issues, but overall not bad). Then came battletomes, which were fine at first, then they added in special rules to make them more Codex-like, and it just escalated from there. The indexes were fine for the most part, there were just some minor things they needed to adjust.

Wayniac wrote:
They did the same thing with AOS though. When it was just the Grand Alliance books, things were fairly okay (still some issues, but overall not bad). Then came battletomes, which were fine at first, then they added in special rules to make them more Codex-like, and it just escalated from there. The indexes were fine for the most part, there were just some minor things they needed to adjust.

I think we can expect an escalation step in the 8th ed of 40k, too.
Some armies have pt entries in the index, in the subsequent codex, and in the subsequent CA.

Been playing this game since 2nd edition and it has NEVER been balanced. There are always 1-3 armies that are just plain stronger than all the others in every edition and can or will fluctuate mid-edition through FAQ's.
If balance is what you are looking for in a war game, you won't find it in any of Games Workshop's offerings.

The main thing that has changed IMO over the years is the divide between casual players and WAAC players.

These two styles of players (who play the same game) either antagonize or be passive aggressive (like hipsters arguing their thing is cooler than other person's) to just downright hostile towards each other . And you can see it in other game systems too like Magic or X-Wing where there is both casual and tournament play available.

If you love the models and fluff of GW games, you can stick with this game by finding other players who play the game like you do (and this might actually take you awhile). If you are WAAC, go find other WAAC players and you will have fun putting your most efficient best against your opponent's most efficient best.

If you're a hobbyist, go find other hobbyists and you will have fun putting together cool looking battles and finding fun narratives to talk about while playing.

There are even some players who like to play both ways (such as myself) and all it takes is a little conversation prior to playing to have a fun game for both of you.

 D6Damager wrote:

If balance is what you are looking for in a war game, you won't find it in any of Games Workshop's offerings.

Yes you will in lotr.

Other than that I agree with your post. 40K is simply too large to be balanced. But I think GW is at least trying to adjust the outliers steadily now, which is a vast improvement to prior editions. The best way to balance the game is to talk to your opponent before the game.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

If balance is what you are looking for in a war game, you won't find it in any of Games Workshop's offerings.

Yes you will in lotr.

Other than that I agree with your post. 40K is simply too large to be balanced. But I think GW is at least trying to adjust the outliers steadily now, which is a vast improvement to prior editions. The best way to balance the game is to talk to your opponent before the game.

I think they missed a great opportunity to do like Mantic did with Warpath; you have a squad-based game, and then a larger, more abstract game that has round movement trays to represent larger forces. Warhammer should have been like that, because part of the big problem is that it's a game that tries to have the low-level detail of a skirmish or squad-based game (e.g. This model has a power sword, this other model has a power maul) but also wants to have large armies where you want abstract values (e.g. This model has a power weapon, the exact type does not matter). From what I have seen, Warpath handles this very well and actually scales up correctly.

I'd like something to be done to mitigate the level of alphastrike, like letting us null deploy but with the potential for consequences, like how we could in 5th edition but you had to roll for units to arrive.

Wayniac wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

If balance is what you are looking for in a war game, you won't find it in any of Games Workshop's offerings.

Yes you will in lotr.

Other than that I agree with your post. 40K is simply too large to be balanced. But I think GW is at least trying to adjust the outliers steadily now, which is a vast improvement to prior editions. The best way to balance the game is to talk to your opponent before the game.

I think they missed a great opportunity to do like Mantic did with Warpath; you have a squad-based game, and then a larger, more abstract game that has round movement trays to represent larger forces. Warhammer should have been like that, because part of the big problem is that it's a game that tries to have the low-level detail of a skirmish or squad-based game (e.g. This model has a power sword, this other model has a power maul) but also wants to have large armies where you want abstract values (e.g. This model has a power weapon, the exact type does not matter). From what I have seen, Warpath handles this very well and actually scales up correctly.

That's true. When they announced 3 ways to play in the rumors of 8th edition I had actually hoped they'd do sth. like that. One of the problems of 40K is that it's always apocalypse and Kill team at the same time.
I don't say they should go back to pre-6th edition where you had unit limits depending on the number of points you played, but it would be cool if apocalypse was more than just "well, you can play more than 2000 points, you know?"
Like wotr allowed for lotr players to field huge armies and play a game in less than 5 hours.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

If balance is what you are looking for in a war game, you won't find it in any of Games Workshop's offerings.

Yes you will in lotr.

Other than that I agree with your post. 40K is simply too large to be balanced. But I think GW is at least trying to adjust the outliers steadily now, which is a vast improvement to prior editions. The best way to balance the game is to talk to your opponent before the game.

I think they missed a great opportunity to do like Mantic did with Warpath; you have a squad-based game, and then a larger, more abstract game that has round movement trays to represent larger forces. Warhammer should have been like that, because part of the big problem is that it's a game that tries to have the low-level detail of a skirmish or squad-based game (e.g. This model has a power sword, this other model has a power maul) but also wants to have large armies where you want abstract values (e.g. This model has a power weapon, the exact type does not matter). From what I have seen, Warpath handles this very well and actually scales up correctly.

That's true. When they announced 3 ways to play in the rumors of 8th edition I had actually hoped they'd do sth. like that. One of the problems of 40K is that it's always apocalypse and Kill team at the same time.
I don't say they should go back to pre-6th edition where you had unit limits depending on the number of points you played, but it would be cool if apocalypse was more than just "well, you can play more than 2000 points, you know?"
Like wotr allowed for lotr players to field huge armies and play a game in less than 5 hours.

Yes. LOTR seems to handle it right. You have Battle Companies (which seems to be more skirmish?), the regular game which is squad level, and then War of the Ring which is the one with the movement trays to fight large battles, right?

That's how AOS and 40k should have both been. It would have even given AOS something vaguely resembling the "rank and flank" that WHFB had.

The rumor back in the day before whfb died was that whfb 9th edition was going to use LOTR rules and I was very excited for that.

Now I wish they'd give us something a little more crunchy for AOS.

And 40k is ... well... it needs something too.

I think the #1 thing that could help fix 40k in the short term is getting rid of I go, you go. Alternating activation really curbs the alpha strike problem, which is the #1 worst thing this edition has brought to the fore.

The second issue I am seeing with 8th edition are the Stratagems. They are a good idea that GW is spamming again, creating a whole host of problems (like how Formations started off ok, then degenerated quite quickly).

The lack of codexes is a temporary problem that will likely be solved in the next 6 months.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think the Chapter Approved is going to do much other than really disincentivize anything Forgeworld, and caused some minor rejiggling of a few netlists, and that's about it. The game still has massive balance issues and GW's response was typically incomprehensible, as is tradition. Overall the game is better than 7th, but not really in a better place than some previous editions. It's playable, but still has massive glaring issues.

Chaos lists are going to need more than a "minor rejiggling" now that the malefic lord is no longer playable, and I can pretty much guarantee you every SM and CSM list is going to have a fire raptor or two in it now.

I was already seeing this.

Double Fire Raptor Dark Angels lists with Imperial Guard screening.

It was good before, it'll be better now.

I voted unbalanced. They're trying but look at all the nerfs they have thrown at imperial guard, and look at how absolutely DOMINANT that faction still is even after them. It's absurd. The core game mechanic of shooting without LOS needs to be fixed. A unit with that kind of ability should NEVER have strength on their weapons above 5 and should suffer a -1 to hit if they can't see their target. I would happily accept this nerf on hive guards as well.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think the Chapter Approved is going to do much other than really disincentivize anything Forgeworld, and caused some minor rejiggling of a few netlists, and that's about it. The game still has massive balance issues and GW's response was typically incomprehensible, as is tradition. Overall the game is better than 7th, but not really in a better place than some previous editions. It's playable, but still has massive glaring issues.

Chaos lists are going to need more than a "minor rejiggling" now that the malefic lord is no longer playable, and I can pretty much guarantee you every SM and CSM list is going to have a fire raptor or two in it now.

I was already seeing this.

Double Fire Raptor Dark Angels lists with Imperial Guard screening.

It was good before, it'll be better now.

I voted unbalanced. They're trying but look at all the nerfs they have thrown at imperial guard, and look at how absolutely DOMINANT that faction still is even after them. It's absurd. The core game mechanic of shooting without LOS needs to be fixed. A unit with that kind of ability should NEVER have strength on their weapons above 5 and should suffer a -1 to hit if they can't see their target. I would happily accept this nerf on hive guards as well.

Guard have had >S5 no-los artillery weapons for...ever. In literally every edition actually. Most of which IG were absolute garbage in from a competitive standpoint. In fact, in the only other edition IG were ever considered particularly good, 5th, indirect fire artillery wasnt their chief punch either.

Yet suddenly such units and weapons are unthinkably powerful and just should not exist?

 auticus wrote:
The rumor back in the day before whfb died was that whfb 9th edition was going to use LOTR rules and I was very excited for that.

Now I wish they'd give us something a little more crunchy for AOS.

And 40k is ... well... it needs something too.

I was hoping AoS was going to be more like LOTR in rules, instead of the 4 pages of gak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red_Five wrote:
I think the #1 thing that could help fix 40k in the short term is getting rid of I go, you go. Alternating activation really curbs the alpha strike problem, which is the #1 worst thing this edition has brought to the fore.

The second issue I am seeing with 8th edition are the Stratagems. They are a good idea that GW is spamming again, creating a whole host of problems (like how Formations started off ok, then degenerated quite quickly).

The lack of codexes is a temporary problem that will likely be solved in the next 6 months.

IT also suffers from too many models that are too large on too small of a playing area.

 thekingofkings wrote:

 auticus wrote:
The rumor back in the day before whfb died was that whfb 9th edition was going to use LOTR rules and I was very excited for that.

Now I wish they'd give us something a little more crunchy for AOS.

And 40k is ... well... it needs something too.

I was hoping AoS was going to be more like LOTR in rules, instead of the 4 pages of gak.

I think the 4 pages works well for the basic game. Then it should have been expanded with advanced rules.

 thekingofkings wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red_Five wrote:
I think the #1 thing that could help fix 40k in the short term is getting rid of I go, you go. Alternating activation really curbs the alpha strike problem, which is the #1 worst thing this edition has brought to the fore.

The second issue I am seeing with 8th edition are the Stratagems. They are a good idea that GW is spamming again, creating a whole host of problems (like how Formations started off ok, then degenerated quite quickly).

The lack of codexes is a temporary problem that will likely be solved in the next 6 months.

IT also suffers from too many models that are too large on too small of a playing area.

Yeah the size of the models and the sheer number now required have definitely affected the game, since we still play on a 6x4 table.

 Red_Five wrote:
I think the #1 thing that could help fix 40k in the short term is getting rid of I go, you go. Alternating activation really curbs the alpha strike problem, which is the #1 worst thing this edition has brought to the fore.

Being a grumbly old 2nd edition player, from what I've seen the biggest issue is terrain, which is not really a fault of the game unless we include the guidance/rules in the rulebook for how much terrain to put on the board. There was a video batrep posted on here the other day, Knights vs AM, and the amount of terrain being used was frankly laughable. If you go back to the 2nd ed campaign supplement (battle for Armageddon) that came with the boxed game, inside it had layouts (using the cardboard ruins that came in the box) for each of the battles. I'd be amazed in those set ups if you could even draw a line between any two points that was more than 20" long. The standard set up for a 40k game at that time was that you shouldn't really be able to see much of the opponents army (if any) from your own deployment zone.

Grumble, grumble, in my day....

bouncingboredom wrote:

 Red_Five wrote:
I think the #1 thing that could help fix 40k in the short term is getting rid of I go, you go. Alternating activation really curbs the alpha strike problem, which is the #1 worst thing this edition has brought to the fore.

Being a grumbly old 2nd edition player, from what I've seen the biggest issue is terrain, which is not really a fault of the game unless we include the guidance/rules in the rulebook for how much terrain to put on the board. There was a video batrep posted on here the other day, Knights vs AM, and the amount of terrain being used was frankly laughable. If you go back to the 2nd ed campaign supplement (battle for Armageddon) that came with the boxed game, inside it had layouts (using the cardboard ruins that came in the box) for each of the battles. I'd be amazed in those set ups if you could even draw a line between any two points that was more than 20" long. The standard set up for a 40k game at that time was that you shouldn't really be able to see much of the opponents army (if any) from your own deployment zone.

Grumble, grumble, in my day....

My take as well, terrain is the key. I mostly play footslogging Death Guard vs. Catachan Guard and it is mostly very fun and meaningful to the end as we use heavy terrain and Cities of Death rules for digging in. One has to actually manouver to get LOS, destroying artillery via deep striking does not actually lead to whole enemy army shooting at said units, tanks have to advance into city ruins proper and what not. Then again, we do use a houserule for units gaining cover if shot through intervening terrain and gentlemanly apply the barricade rules for cover rather liberally, because it makes for a better experience altogether. Can recommend for anyone.

Regarding alphastrike problems, new missions in Chapter Approved are taking tentative steps to fix that. Roving Patrol, for an example. You split your force in three, randomize one of them to start on field, roll 3+ for all others on turn two and get all the rest on the third. Can't wreck everything from the get go, won't have reliable bubble wrap against deep strikes, will actually have to plan movements to get to the objectives in time. Me likey.

 Red_Five wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 auticus wrote:
The rumor back in the day before whfb died was that whfb 9th edition was going to use LOTR rules and I was very excited for that.

Now I wish they'd give us something a little more crunchy for AOS.

And 40k is ... well... it needs something too.

I was hoping AoS was going to be more like LOTR in rules, instead of the 4 pages of gak.

I think the 4 pages works well for the basic game. Then it should have been expanded with advanced rules.

 thekingofkings wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red_Five wrote:
I think the #1 thing that could help fix 40k in the short term is getting rid of I go, you go. Alternating activation really curbs the alpha strike problem, which is the #1 worst thing this edition has brought to the fore.

The second issue I am seeing with 8th edition are the Stratagems. They are a good idea that GW is spamming again, creating a whole host of problems (like how Formations started off ok, then degenerated quite quickly).

The lack of codexes is a temporary problem that will likely be solved in the next 6 months.

IT also suffers from too many models that are too large on too small of a playing area.

Yeah the size of the models and the sheer number now required have definitely affected the game, since we still play on a 6x4 table.

I was a bit shocked to see 2 knights (1 per army) and some primaris repulsors on our 6x4 RoB board., almost the whole table was taken up by deployed forces, it was nuts. I can see the 4 pages for "here is a basic overview" but its far too shallow for where I think they want AoS to go. Ideally smaller forces for AoS and 8th seem to play better, but I rarely see 20-30PL forces or small warscroll count forces (too many warscrolls make it so the only benefit is to have hordes of guys)

Yeah the base rules we have for 40k or AOS now work great fora basic game. But I really really want an advanced system on top of that.

This request gets shouted down quite often and leads to bannings from forums lol.

 auticus wrote:
Yeah the base rules we have for 40k or AOS now work great fora basic game. But I really really want an advanced system on top of that.

This request gets shouted down quite often and leads to bannings from forums lol.

the problem is its so base that we almost dont have a game at all.

 auticus wrote:
Yeah the base rules we have for 40k or AOS now work great fora basic game. But I really really want an advanced system on top of that.

This request gets shouted down quite often and leads to bannings from forums lol.

Where are you getting banned for advocating for a more advanced ruleset!? I can only imagine on an official GW group, can't imagine somewhere like here banning for discussing a more advanced ruleset.