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AdmiralHalsey wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Danny slag wrote:
part is the tournament scene being so chalk full of cheese it's basically a joke with zero competition or tactics being used

This leads me to think that you don't know what you're talking about. If, as you suggest, an army spamming one good unit is all that's required for tournament success then why haven't you won any national-level events? Why do the same group of people consistently do well when anyone can take a spam army to the event?

Potentially because those people are wealthy enough to afford the constantly changing "Best List", also wealthy enough to be able to afford to travel and participate in those events, geographically located well enough to do so, and perhaps more importantly are interested enough in the penis mesuring contest that is competative 40k to want to do all the above at no small expense?

We're not a huge hobby. We're an expensive hobby. And matched play is a smaller part of the whole hobby, and competiting at high level matched play is an even smaller part.

I mean, our biggest torny ever is a whole 500 people.

It's not too suprising the top 32 to are relatively consistant.

Travelling to major events in the UK and buying/updating an army once or twice a year is hardly an expense beyond most people's means.

Try playing against some people at that level and you'll find there is much more player skill involved in their success than Danny was suggesting.

The biggest difference between the people consistently at the top tables and everyone else is the amount and level of practice they get. Most of them are getting ~4-5 games at week against excellent opponents.

 Peregrine wrote:
No, 40k does not need more CCG-style synergies. The problem with 40k is that it is a CCG with cards you have to paint yourself, not a wargame. To fix the game GW needs to push it back in a direction towards things like movement and positioning being important, not add more "I cast tactical marine and buff it with chapter master and plasma gun and I deal 40,000 damage to you, I win" mechanics.

best description of 8th ever

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
No, 40k does not need more CCG-style synergies. The problem with 40k is that it is a CCG with cards you have to paint yourself, not a wargame. To fix the game GW needs to push it back in a direction towards things like movement and positioning being important, not add more "I cast tactical marine and buff it with chapter master and plasma gun and I deal 40,000 damage to you, I win" mechanics.

best description of 8th ever

I agree very good description

 Peregrine wrote:
No, 40k does not need more CCG-style synergies. The problem with 40k is that it is a CCG with cards you have to paint yourself, not a wargame. To fix the game GW needs to push it back in a direction towards things like movement and positioning being important, not add more "I cast tactical marine and buff it with chapter master and plasma gun and I deal 40,000 damage to you, I win" mechanics.

I know not to take your opinion seriously because the bulk of it is baseless whining but I find it tremendously entertaining that you don't think movement or positioning matters. My close combat army thrives 100% on proper positioning pre- and post charge, proper deployment and movement to open my screens at the right time. I get that in your likely stale meta you probably don't see it but this is just baseless. You can see how wrong it is just by reading up on the final table at Adepticon.

No, 40k does not need more CCG-style synergies. The problem with 40k is that it is a CCG with cards you have to paint yourself, not a wargame. To fix the game GW needs to push it back in a direction towards things like movement and positioning being important, not add more "I cast tactical marine and buff it with chapter master and plasma gun and I deal 40,000 damage to you, I win" mechanics.

>Positioning is not important
>Just position your tactical marines next to your chapter master but also in optimal range of your desired target and such that the chapter master also buffs other units

Do you honestly not see the irony?

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
I find it tremendously entertaining that you don't think movement or positioning matters.

I find it tremendously entertaining that you think movement and positioning matter in a game where so many units can either deploy directly into close range shooting or a decent chance of a turn 1 charge or simply have enough raw speed to go wherever they want (including a turn-1 charge), and where terrain has been made almost irrelevant by ridiculous movement and LOS rules, and where flanking/hitting rear armor on vehicles/etc have all been removed from the game. GW has relentlessly diminished the importance of movement and positioning in favor of a CCG style "I cast 'charge with space marines' on your unit" system. Rarely do you have to plan a game of move vs. counter-move, you just declare which target you are attacking and roll dice to see if it works.

And no, the existence of screens don't make movement and positioning matter, just like the existence of blocking in MTG doesn't make it a game of movement and positioning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ushtarador wrote:
>Positioning is not important
>Just position your tactical marines next to your chapter master but also in optimal range of your desired target and such that the chapter master also buffs other units

Do you honestly not see the irony?

That is not positioning, it's casting your MTG spells. You know the formation to use ("blob up everything within the aura"), you're just executing it on the table. This isn't like X-Wing where you're trying to plan out complex maneuvers and out-guess your opponent. Perhaps if you are impressed by this level of "depth" in positioning and movement strategy you should try playing a non-GW game and see how much better things can be?

No, if you play against a good opponent you can't just blob everything around the aura, because you will be out of position, you will get your whole army tied up in cc, you will not reach the objectives you need to get.

Just last game I made a mistake of blobbing up my Tau too much and 8 Shining Spears engaged everything in CC, which made me lose the game. If I had positioned more smartly he would only have gotten 2 units at most.

Peregrine said it better than I could

Perhaps if you are impressed by this level of "depth" in positioning and movement strategy you should try playing a non-GW game and see how much better things can be?

I want to play 40k because I love the fluff and the models. I don't deny there are games with more depth and movement strategy, but 8th is absolutely good enough for competitive games, and far better than you make it out to be.

And you know, maybe stop posting on 40k forums if you just hate the game?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
I find it tremendously entertaining that you don't think movement or positioning matters.

I find it tremendously entertaining that you think movement and positioning matter in a game where so many units can either deploy directly into close range shooting or a decent chance of a turn 1 charge or simply have enough raw speed to go wherever they want (including a turn-1 charge), and where terrain has been made almost irrelevant by ridiculous movement and LOS rules, and where flanking/hitting rear armor on vehicles/etc have all been removed from the game. GW has relentlessly diminished the importance of movement and positioning in favor of a CCG style "I cast 'charge with space marines' on your unit" system. Rarely do you have to plan a game of move vs. counter-move, you just declare which target you are attacking and roll dice to see if it works.

And no, the existence of screens don't make movement and positioning matter, just like the existence of blocking in MTG doesn't make it a game of movement and positioning.

Fair points all, none supported by actual game play but there's not an argument to be had. I don't 'argue' with people who have no interest in taking a look at things from outside their already established viewpoint.

To the OP's point, ultimately I disagree. I think 40k has strong synergies, and generally I think 8th is a solid edition. Are there things I'd like to improve? Certainly. And as they release more codexes I think things are improving and they're certainly learning their lessons from earlier books.

Ushtarador wrote:

Perhaps if you are impressed by this level of "depth" in positioning and movement strategy you should try playing a non-GW game and see how much better things can be?

I want to play 40k because I love the fluff and the models. I don't deny there are games with more depth and movement strategy, but 8th is absolutely good enough for competitive games, and far better than you make it out to be.

And you know, maybe stop posting on 40k forums if you just hate the game?

But if he did that then how would he get to feel clever and above it all on the daily? He might actually have to do something positive instead of making the same "clever" post about how 40k is more like a CCG than a wargame over and over.

You know, it's funny, I rarely see anyone posting things like "all {poster} does is talk about how they like 40k, why do they have to do it so much". But when the subject is criticism of GW or 40k there's inevitably a crowd lining up to complain about "why do you have to post that so much". It's a double standard that is simultaneously amusing and irritating, and I think it says a lot about certain GW-apologist elements of the community.

 Peregrine wrote:
You know, it's funny, I rarely see anyone posting things like "all {poster} does is talk about how they like 40k, why do they have to do it so much". But when the subject is criticism of GW or 40k there's inevitably a crowd lining up to complain about "why do you have to post that so much". It's a double standard that is simultaneously amusing and irritating, and I think it says a lot about certain GW-apologist elements of the community.

No it says a lot about the quality and nature of your posts. Because literally the only thing you do is post things that include 'CAAC' and 'CCG'. Your arguments are stale and oft repeated and you have no actual interest in being challenged. Instead (best I can tell) you spend most of your time on Dakka to A) feel persecuted by GW apologists and B) feel superior to them because you've so obviously seen the flaws they miss. Perhaps if you engaged in discourse as opposed to talking at people you wouldn't get the same response.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Your arguments are stale and oft repeated and you have no actual interest in being challenged.

Nonsense. I have plenty of interest in being challenged, it's not my fault the challenges inevitably suck. It's almost always some form of "WAAC TFG TOURNAMENTS SUCK BEER AND PRETZELS" or "STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE ALL THE TIME", with an occasional interesting debate on game design.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Peregrine said it better than I could

That does not mean he is right. There is positioning in 40K It is simply not in the milimetres mostly so therefore it does not count.
40k is not missing synergies, you simply discard the ones that are there because they are too overt or simple.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Your arguments are stale and oft repeated and you have no actual interest in being challenged.

Nonsense. I have plenty of interest in being challenged, it's not my fault the challenges inevitably suck. It's almost always some form of "WAAC TFG TOURNAMENTS SUCK BEER AND PRETZELS" or "STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE ALL THE TIME", with an occasional interesting debate on game design.

And there you go - talking at people rather than talking to them. I'd love to be challenged! If only there were someone who was my equal to challenge me. Alas.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
And there you go - talking at people rather than talking to them. I'd love to be challenged! If only there were someone who was my equal to challenge me. Alas.

Said by the person who jumped straight to an accusation of "baseless whining" in their very first interaction with me here. Forgive me if I don't bother believing that you're here to have a good-faith discussion of anything.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
And there you go - talking at people rather than talking to them. I'd love to be challenged! If only there were someone who was my equal to challenge me. Alas.

Said by the person who jumped straight to an accusation of "baseless whining" in their very first interaction with me here. Forgive me if I don't bother believing that you're here to have a good-faith discussion of anything.

Yeah I mean at this point you've established a pattern. If you'd like I can go through and find several quotes that give me what one might consider the 'main stream' thinking if you will. Unfortunately this isn't an anonymous image board so people develop reputations based on the history of their posts. The worst part of it all is I think you're right about probably half the things you talk about it and I'd venture there might be more but its hard to form any discourse with you because you're just as like to call things a 'joke' or suggest mental inferiority as opposed to actually elucidating your point.

Buffs and synergies?

7th edition says hello.

Don't acknowledge it or it may come back.

8th is an edition about spacing. Good lord does space matter.

How many lascannons did I just deploy my tank in range of?

How many units are cluttered together that those berserkers are about to pacman through?

Is that Devastator squad in or out of my commander's 6" bubble while he's wandering off to counter-assault some poor sods?

Did I properly wrap my lines? Did my opponent differ his deep strike in hopes that I will scatter more on turn 2? Did I fall for that, again?

Why is my commander standing 2mm in front of the line of guys he is buffing? Ah crap, his screen was murdered and now he's dead.

How many of those bikes can I shoot off of that objective? How many can I shoot off before I shoot myself out of assaulting them and thus lose the objective?

MTG, and practically every other CCG, has always been about net decking. Once people realized they could have other people look at their ideas and critique them, and use that experience and perspective to evolve their decks... they began using it. "Competitive" events for those games usually boiled down to the "deck to beat" and the "deck that beats the deck to beat", and usually a few modifications to personalize the deck or try to get 1% more efficiency out of it.

Comparing playing a turn at Warhammer to a turn in MTG is completely out of line. I mean, I guess you could... if the tabletop in MTG could fight you back in addition to your opponent. "Oh, I'm sorry, your summon creature spell was put down just 2 inches too far away for you to attack my creature. Maybe when you get to your upkeep phase next turn and you can adjust it."

To get the real CCG feeling, you'd have to do things like eliminate the dead-man's land, play on a flat 6'x4' surface, and be able to place all of your stuff in such a way that it is simultaneously in range of all of the prime targets you want.

I think this whole discussion is really starting to showcase why the top players are the top players. They consider a lot of these variables quickly, and internally, and usually you don't catch on until it is too late to reverse your course... or of course, you lose. Some people never catch on. Those are the ones who say that luck simply was not with them, or their opponent just lucked into a really good position/dice rolls/whatever.

How many synergy you have largely depends on your faction. BA is up right now because they have great synergies right now and SM live and die based on their stacking bonuses. The fact that the best Imperial model is Gulliman, whose buff bubble gave rise to a couple new netlists is proof enough of that.

I hear your compliant about the lack of positioning and strategy. GW abstracted a lot of that away in favor of higher model counts, but I think they might have gone too far. I'd love to see firing arcs reimplemented a la WMH and alternating activations. Firing arcs would make placement matter again and AA means you can't just alpha-strike your opponents models on turn 1 any more.

That being said, 8th is the best ruleset we've gotten so far. It's 'good enough' until 9th rolls around and we get some of our tactical play back.

 Earth127 wrote:

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Peregrine said it better than I could

That does not mean he is right. There is positioning in 40K It is simply not in the milimetres mostly so therefore it does not count.
40k is not missing synergies, you simply discard the ones that are there because they are too overt or simple.

So am I to assume spamming the best deep striking units and area denial counts as proof positioning and movement actually matter? Any army with a stratagem, psychic power, or army trait that bends/breaks movements rules literally makes positioning and movement irrelevant. If your saying that only a few armies can do that. Well I agree and if you also say its the CP/Detachment rules that allow it to be broken. Then I somewhat agree. However, when a game bends/breaks movement rules it ends up breaking the game. All these so called best meta armies have ways that can break movement.

I don't care about synergies so much, as long as they don't break movement.

 Earth127 wrote:
That does not mean he is right. There is positioning in 40K It is simply not in the milimetres mostly so therefore it does not count.
40k is not missing synergies, you simply discard the ones that are there because they are too overt or simple.

You're making the mistake of presenting this as an all or nothing deal, as if 40k having even a single synergy or movement element, no matter how superficial or badly executed, means that it gets full credit for having those things. Obviously when we say "40k is a CCG" or "positioning doesn't matter" it's not a literal 100% absolute, it's a statement that what 40k does have is so shallow that it is barely worth acknowledging. Yes, technically you move your models, but usually only in the most obvious and simple ways.

And it isn't about not having movement in millimeters, it's about depth. 40k has very little advance planning, guessing move vs. counter-move, etc. It isn't like a game of BFG or Armada where you have to plan out moves multiple turns in advance, predicting the game state in the future so that your ships arrive at the correct position. Generally the place to move your units is extremely obvious, and GW keeps simplifying the process. Why worry about how to successfully move between LOS-blocking elements to protect your melee units until they close within charge range when you can just have a 48" threat range and essentially deploy directly into combat on turn 1? Why spend time debating which transport option is best for your plasma storm troopers when you can just deploy them within rapid fire range on turn 1? Why debate the defensive bonus of cover vs. the slower movement speed if you have to move through/away from it when terrain doesn't block LOS or slow movement or really do much of anything besides make the table look pretty? Why try to outflank when nothing has vulnerable armor facings or limited firing arcs or anything else beyond being an omnidirectional brick of HP and offensive dice? All of these are things that 40k used to have, before GW stripped them out in favor of making a CCG.

Plz hold tight I'll write a full anwser when I have time tomorrow/tonight.

They didn't strip out all of those technical nuances to make it a CCG. They stripped it out because having to reference 3 books to figure out what Rage did was really a thing. Having to read books in order of publication just to understand what assaulting through cover actually meant.

There were things that were genuinely bad in the game. Both synergies and circular chicken and egg rulings that really meant that it was going to be up to a d6 to determine who was right, this time the rule came up.

There were so many special rules floating and weapons floating around that the game was becoming a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book where you kept getting referenced to another page or another book to figure out what your models actually did. In that aspect, a CCG format is an improvement over the Choose Your Own Adventure.

As for the state of the current tabletop... movement is not only a turn 1 on thing, but it is also a deployment consideration, and also a list building consideration. I guess you could deploy all your stuff in a flat line and hope for the best. But I bet your opponent would love to have his say in that plan.

Most deployment zones are at least 12" deep, and yet most players only really look at 2 places on it: the closest point to the opponent, and the furthest point. Guys up front move, guys in the back sit.

We all look at those deep strikers lurking, and then routinely ignore them, only to complain that the plasma got into double-tap range of my snowflake model that makes the army work. Or we leave enough space for that flyrant to plop in right behind our screens. So much of this pain is self-inflicted. Some of it is GW inflicted.

You guys got to believe in the spleen of the cards

 Peregrine wrote:

And it isn't about not having movement in millimeters, it's about depth. 40k has very little advance planning, guessing move vs. counter-move, etc. It isn't like a game of BFG or Armada where you have to plan out moves multiple turns in advance, predicting the game state in the future so that your ships arrive at the correct position. Generally the place to move your units is extremely obvious . . .

If the place to move your units is obvious. . . that would seem to suggest that position matters. If you have a slow army and you have to get into position, then you have to plan in advance.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why worry about how to successfully move between LOS-blocking elements to protect your melee units until they close within charge range when you can just have a 48" threat range and essentially deploy directly into combat on turn 1?

How many units out of the hundreds available can do this? Can you deploy directly into combat with the best target on turn 1? If you can't, that's because screens exist. Screens only work by leveraging position. So again, position matters.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why spend time debating which transport option is best for your plasma storm troopers when you can just deploy them within rapid fire range on turn 1?

There are positives and negatives when discussing the Rhino vs. the Drop Pod. The differences matter.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why debate the defensive bonus of cover vs. the slower movement speed if you have to move through/away from it when terrain doesn't block LOS or slow movement or really do much of anything besides make the table look pretty?

Lots of terrain blocks vehicle movement, or MC movement. . .even bike movement. You can make terrain that blocks LOS. Use better terrain.

 Peregrine wrote:

Why try to outflank when nothing has vulnerable armor facings or limited firing arcs or anything else beyond being an omnidirectional brick of HP and offensive dice?

It's true, armor facings have been simplified. I've come to appreciate the simplification. That's all.

 Peregrine wrote:

All of these are things that 40k used to have, before GW stripped them out in favor of making a CCG.

"When" are you talking about when you say "used to have". The positioning game of 40K hasn't changed too much on the macro-level, Imo, through the past few editions.

 Insectum7 wrote:

If the place to move your units is obvious. . . that would seem to suggest that position matters. If you have a slow army and you have to get into position, then you have to plan in advance.

The problem is that if all the moves are obvious and require little to no consideration, then there's no purpose in player agency, you can remove movement from the equation because all of the optimal solutions have been found. Moreover, there's no counterplay involved, as even though you might know what your opponents' plans might be, their most optimal solution will almost always stay their most optimal solution regardless of how you act. It's all very spelled out, there's no guessing game between opponents.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why worry about how to successfully move between LOS-blocking elements to protect your melee units until they close within charge range when you can just have a 48" threat range and essentially deploy directly into combat on turn 1?

How many units out of the hundreds available can do this? Can you deploy directly into combat with the best target on turn 1? If you can't, that's because screens exist. Screens only work by leveraging position. So again, position matters.

There are enough units that can do that that it forces the metagame in a specific direction that makes those that can't not worth taking. Assault units that can't make a turn one charge or come from reserves don't matter. Screens don't really leverage position because the position of screens in 40k is, like most other positioning, very automatic. It matters, but not in a way that enhances decision making. Blobby bodies block back line artillery. You rarely have to make specific decisions in how your opponent will act with their tools, the optimal solution is, once again, always the same in this regard. And thus, positioning isn't really that important to the game because there's no relevant agency to it.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why spend time debating which transport option is best for your plasma storm troopers when you can just deploy them within rapid fire range on turn 1?

There are positives and negatives when discussing the Rhino vs. the Drop Pod. The differences matter.

Not a particularly good example. Drop pods are prohibitively overpriced and fulfil a different role. On the other hand, you never really need to debate differences in deployment for Tempestus Scions. Plasma drops will win every time.



I actually like removing vehicle facings, amoung other things, to streamline 40k's design and make the game actually playable. But Peregrine's definitely right in the point that positioning, as with most other elements of building lists and playing the game, are very binary, and remove the need for actual decision making or counterplay. The game moves too quickly in the early rounds to encourage deliberate pacing. Units that aren't effective across the entire table on turn one just aren't really worth bringing to it, which gives very little purpose to taking time to feel out your opponent's strategy and counter appropriately. Instead, you already know their strategy, it's the same as yours: wipe out everything that can hurt you on turn one.

Given that I know what I want to do when I deploy, I put my army down on the table... no consideration given to what my opponent is showing me.

I put my army down in the optimum configuration to deliver my fire base to his deployment zone, regardless of any variables his deployment may offer me.

I know there is only the optimum way to move up the table and fire at exposed targets. My opponent knows it, too. He sees me deploying in the hyper-aggressive stance that has come to be the standard in 8th edition. I give him no consideration as he asks silly questions like: can you see this squad of fluff hiding behind this building from that location? Why would I care about that? Those guys suck, but whatever, no I cannot see it.

Late in deployment credible threats go back to some corner of the field, but it is okay, my army can easily answer it. I have the firepower to remove anything he can put down, and I have +1 to my roll as I finished deploying 5 drops ago.

Turn 1: I rotate my guns towards the big monstrous thing he put down late. I now realize that it was hiding behind the screen of fluff guys that I cannot see. I cannot drop my deep strikers because he has choked off avenues of approach and created distance between his chaff and his guarded units. Well, looks like I am firing at crap that doesn't matter as much. Those big tanks that I responded to deployment earlier, but really don't do much but distract. I am distracted, just like I was earlier in deployment.

See, the optimum choices matter until the variables presented change what is optimal. A simple acknowledgment of someone locked into fomulaic thinking could be enough of a clue to help you understand how to exploit that to your advantage. Now his optimum choices wane and your unorthodox choices change the balance of power.

This type of maneuvering started all the way at list building when I chose to make a list with 8 drops to get that +1 to my "win first" roll, and he decided to come with 16 so he could be sure to space things out and be the last one deploying the critical units after my hand has been played.

Deep strikers can change this, but still... it has to be announced, and any good player has to recognize where those deep strikers are going to be invited to go.

This stuff really does matter.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

If the place to move your units is obvious. . . that would seem to suggest that position matters. If you have a slow army and you have to get into position, then you have to plan in advance.

The problem is that if all the moves are obvious and require little to no consideration, then there's no purpose in player agency, you can remove movement from the equation because all of the optimal solutions have been found. Moreover, there's no counterplay involved, as even though you might know what your opponents' plans might be, their most optimal solution will almost always stay their most optimal solution regardless of how you act. It's all very spelled out, there's no guessing game between opponents.

Whether or not there's player agency is a different argument than "position matters". I'd argue that player agency (and position) matters quite a bit anyways, since I've seen new players botch a ton of placement/movement choices on the tabletop. Maybe it's obvious to you, but that doesn't make it non-existent. Moreover, while I can understand why one could see the placement for the shooting phase as being simplistic, the assault phase can be quite position-dependent with pile-ins, multiple units, heroic interventions, etc.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Why worry about how to successfully move between LOS-blocking elements to protect your melee units until they close within charge range when you can just have a 48" threat range and essentially deploy directly into combat on turn 1?

How many units out of the hundreds available can do this? Can you deploy directly into combat with the best target on turn 1? If you can't, that's because screens exist. Screens only work by leveraging position. So again, position matters.

There are enough units that can do that that it forces the metagame in a specific direction that makes those that can't not worth taking. Assault units that can't make a turn one charge or come from reserves don't matter. Screens don't really leverage position because the position of screens in 40k is, like most other positioning, very automatic. It matters, but not in a way that enhances decision making. Blobby bodies block back line artillery. You rarely have to make specific decisions in how your opponent will act with their tools, the optimal solution is, once again, always the same in this regard. And thus, positioning isn't really that important to the game because there's no relevant agency to it.

Disagree very heavily. Hormagaunts can't necessarily make a turn one charge, but they can sure as heck change the shape of a game. As for screens, many armies don't have the mass of cheap bodies available, and have to use fewer, more expensive units to effectively screen, making their positioning more tricky. Play against a screen horde can be positionally challenging, do you attack along a focused area and hope for a quick punch-through, or do you attack along a wide area so that you cutoff escape by the protected units? The choices aren't always obvious.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Why spend time debating which transport option is best for your plasma storm troopers when you can just deploy them within rapid fire range on turn 1?

There are positives and negatives when discussing the Rhino vs. the Drop Pod. The differences matter.

Not a particularly good example. Drop pods are prohibitively overpriced and fulfil a different role. On the other hand, you never really need to debate differences in deployment for Tempestus Scions. Plasma drops will win every time.

You're talking to a guy who takes Drop Pods all the time, so you'd be barking up the wrong tree there. That's beside the point even, Pod and Rhinos clearly bring different advantages. Pods offer total protection and freedom of movement, while Rhinos offer up some synergistic abilities in the capacity to assault units, or provide moving LOS/path-blocking "walls". Yes, Scions can DS with plasma for free, that's one unit. Just one. Are we really in the business of making sweeping generalizations based on the 1%?

 Fafnir wrote:

I actually like removing vehicle facings, amoung other things, to streamline 40k's design and make the game actually playable. But Peregrine's definitely right in the point that positioning, as with most other elements of building lists and playing the game, are very binary, and remove the need for actual decision making or counterplay. The game moves too quickly in the early rounds to encourage deliberate pacing. Units that aren't effective across the entire table on turn one just aren't really worth bringing to it, which gives very little purpose to taking time to feel out your opponent's strategy and counter appropriately. Instead, you already know their strategy, it's the same as yours: wipe out everything that can hurt you on turn one.

Play with better terrain.

Said it before and I'll say it again but 8th edition stripped out a lot of factors in gameplay which end up making tactics and decision making a lot simpler and limits the number of options you have because a lot of options have become so similar to each other.

1. Positioning matters a lot less when it comes to shooting. The core things that matter now are being in range and being close enough to whatever buff auras you can get. Unless there is a solid wall or your using ITC rules then its very difficult to completely hide a unit behind LoS blockers and it really doesn't matter how much obstruction there is between your guys and the target. It tends to make long range units able to fire away at their ideal targets (lascannons for example) and it doesn't matter if there is a huge ruins in the way because they can see a part of the target so pew pew the lascannons go. Armor facings and closest model casualties made it matter where your guys stood and where they shot/got shot from.

2. Weapons are very similar to each other. At the end of the day you can use basically any weapon to do any job so if you have nothing but pulse rifles as Tau then you can just spam pulse fire at anything and bring it down eventually. Granted its not ideal against a T8 2+ armor landraider but for the most part shooting comes down to some function of damage vs target compared to points cost and you aim the ideal weapons at the ideal targets. In past editions that was generally true as well but it was a lot more unforgiving to fire bolters at a Talos and they where useless against AV11 and up (aka most vehicle's front armor). 8th is plagued with a lot of "this is the ideal weapon" issues with plasma being the big problem child which is only sub par against hordes of cheap cannon fodder infantry. Weapons that use to be blast have all but lost their purpose while single shot expensive weapons are still rarely worth their points. Even the old reliable vehicle killer (melta) is too inconsistent and far more likely than before to not actually hurt the target its shooting at.

3. (this feeds the issues of 1 and 2). Terrain and cover rules are a dumpster fire of bad and for the most part don't really impact the game in a meaningful enough way. Shooting through a bunch of terrain or other units has little to no impact on the durability of what your shooting at unless the target is parked fully inside and if they aren't infantry then they need to be 50% obscured (if its a multi model unit then I believe all of them have to have at least 50% obstruction). So if your unit has 7 guys in terrain and 3 guys behind the terrain (they didn't reach the ruins yet) then YOU DO NOT GET A ZOGGING COVER SAVE. Doesn't matter if that heavy bolter is shooting past 2 units of boyz, a ruins, a pile of rubble, through the open spaces of a trukk, and can only see the top quarter of the kanz but screw you grots you don't get any cover benefits. Basically it means see the target and be in range then you dakka dakka dakka all you want.

4. Cover save is a +1 to your save which can be negated by AP and dis-proportionally helps units with high armor while being relatively inconsequential to low armor units. Plasma is king partially because it cuts through saves.Lootas in ruins get vaporized by plasma regardless if they where in cover or not. An Tankbusta in cover is getting a 5+ save and it can still be reduced by any AP values so they are barely getting any durability. A tactical marine in cover is now rocking terminator armor which is a huge difference in durability than bring a tankbusta up from a T-Shirt to standard issue guardsman cardboard. Before it made a world of difference when you pointed a plasma gun at a model out in the open vs a model in cover (open = no save, cover was generally a 4+ or 5+) and shooting through other units was a 5+ cover save so those screen units did more than just soak up charges but helped protect against ranged attacks.

5. Terrain is a non factor in so many ways when it comes to movement, shooting, and close combat. Already mentioned the shooting side of things but now movement really doesn't care about terrain. As long as its not a solid barrier that you have to go around then you just make your movements as normal regardless if its open fields or the rocky rubble piles of a bombed out building. Reducing movement but getting that cover was a trade off so it required more battlefield awareness and decision making. For assaults terrain would reduce your charge range and if you lacked grenades then you would swing last (I1). Made having terrain between you and the enemy unit matter as it required getting in closer to more reliably make a charge. Dangerous terrain was also a factor but the compounded roll requirements for it to do anything often made it feel somewhat inconsequential for a lot of units (unless your using Stormboyz then on baby your gonna take some casualties).

6 and beyond. Deployment was overly simplified which doesn't really provide options to negate alpha strikes so now you can almost always count on your turn 1 shooting to have targets to shoot at. Shooting and close combat is quite deadly and hard to deny so it becomes a blood bath from turn 1 and generally results in tabling before the end of game. Compound all the issues from above and you get a game where in general its best to just bring the most points efficient combat units to alpha strike the opponent off the board asap and you defend against this by using cheap fodder units to be a screen. Transports are underwhelming for their points cost so you tend to see a lot of units on foot which leaves them exposed to getting shot to death. If its a specailist unit like say Tankbustas who don't have cheap disposable wounds to burn then they become high priority targets and cost ineffective to field unless they can safely turn 1 alpha strike something before dying to return fire. It tends to reduce practical options because you need to bring units that can be points effective at either dying or dealing damage (or both if your codex/index is lucky). Without the need for very specialized weapons then it tends to come down to the versatile options that can handle a wide range of targets and thus you see stuff like plasma which is generally good against most targets. Add to that deep striking being very predictable (no scatter, 9" away, pick when it arrives, etc) so use of deepstrike becomes very low risk and not have uncertainty of when they arrive means you aren't taking a risk of it being delayed and thus not contributing to the fight when its needed.

There is more to this but that is some of the major issues I see with 8th and ultimately it makes the game feel boring. Its not that the game is completely missing all the decisonmaking and complexity of 7th but that everything has been simplified to the point of being rather similar as the path of least resistance/optimiaztion tends to bring you to the same result each time. Not enough factors with the battlefield itself to throw a wrench in your plans and de-optimize an army's execution.