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I was sat here the other day working out my Orks list for a 1k points game and it dawned on me that I was about to run like 100+ models. I then look up at my marines, who had a huge points reduction in CA, and go "huh, I need to buy more troops to make my points 2k again". It was at this moment I Then looked over at my Epic armies and went "Ummm! Why does my Epic army have less boyz and units than my real Ork and marine army?". I kinda feel 40k has inflated a little bit to the point where i remember older games with my Marines and liked the fact I just had 10 guyz, a rhino, terminator squad and a dreadnought and that was it. Or when I'd have 60 boyz on the table and my opponent would go "wow, that's a lot of models!"

The idea of lots of models on the table does appeal to me but sometimes I want a nice in between game that doesn't only last a turn (not Killteam scale but not modern 40k scale). What do we all think? Recently, I've been playing a lot of other games that only require a few models so maybe it has tainted my mind but remember back in the early editions a 2k point marine army was pretty small model count...

100% yes, there are too many. 40K has become a bit of a farce - in their drive to construct a system that allows players to include everything from Primarchs to Knights and even Titans, GW have created a situation where collecting most kinds of actual *army* ie infantry and basic vehicles has become ludicrous. I watched a game of 8th a couple of weeks ago where one player was playing infantry-based IG, and not only did the game just look dumb and boring - his whole deployment zone was basically packed in all dimensions with bases and a couple of parked vehicles - the Guard player spent most of his time just shovelling whole handfuls of models back off the table.

Modern Marine armies have more models in them than my 3rd Ed Imperial Guard did at the same point value.

Thing is, it's not fixable, because GW aren't going to do the sensible thing and relegate all the mad, gigantic, uber-powered stuff back to "opponent's permission only" expansions, because they would sell less big stompy robots and giant overpriced characters, and while that stuff remains part of the basic game collecting any army that doesn't prominently include several such units or which is one of the newer hyper-super-duper-we-really-mean-it-this-time-extremely-elite armies like Custodes is going to be a chore & playing with them an inconvenience.

If you really do want the classic 40K experience again, I'd recommend finding folk to play classic 40K with. 4th Ed rulebook with a mix of 3rd and 4th Ed codices and a sprinkling of house rules is great fun in my experience.

...or just go down to say 1,500 points, and agree to leave out units like (Wraith)Knights, Baneblade sized vehicles, and Primarchs.

You are entirely correct that model count has risen through the decades. At the same time it is somewhat silly that people often refuse to just play smaller points, even if that has precedent, like 1500 that was the 2000 of years gone by.

Personally, all problems of army size really fade when one just ditches the turn structure and starts to use alternating activations of some sort. That way the back'n'forth is actually meaningful even with small scales without going full on skirmish.

The main way to fix it is probably just play at lower point values I've got nothing against 1500pt games.

I also feel like chapter approved seems to want to buff everything with point values and nerf very little. This will inevitably lead to more models on the table in the long run. I'd be fine with them nerfing as much as they buff just to cut down on inflation.

Entirely dependent on which faction you play.

IG / Ork horde, yep

Ad Mech / Harlequins, middle of the road

Custodes / GK, generally not

Waaaay to many models.

The only way to avoid it is low point games and house rules or old rules.

Yeah, there's been an inflation in model count needed, absolutely.

As others have suggested, play to lower points. 1k games are really fun imo!

I've literally found it easier to persuade people to play older editions than I have to get them to play the edition of the day at smaller point values, and that's been true since I felt the need to start doing that in 6th.

Also, small point value games aren't a fantastic solution in 8th, since the entire ruleset has been rebuilt from the ground up to cater to larger model counts and more Big Nasty Thingies - you can agree not to bring "broken" stuff, or BNTs, or any other restrictions you like, but it's not going to prevent perverse outcomes and odd situations arising from that new paradigm. Durability is a big one - small point value games in 8th can be very "swingy", with the potential for units to drop like flies and leave your army decimated very quickly.

Yes, absolutely. There's been both an increase in the general number of models for a game as well as the overall scale of the game itself over the years. I much preferred the scale of 2nd edition, even early 3rd edition to what we have now.

The issue is that GW scaled up 40k instead of doing a proper split between the game so 40k's rules could work where they fit best (platoon/company level). They used to have this (Epic) but got rid of it since they felt it "competed" with sales of 40k (which tbh is a ridiculous idea since it's both their games so they make money whether you buy for one or the other)

What they should have done was either keep Epic for the large scale fights with superheavies or better yet do something similar to what Mantic did for Warpath and actually split the game with two sets of rules for the same models: One more detailed for the lower size and one more abstract for the larger size (similar to what they did years ago with LOTR when they had the regular game and the mass battle game) so both game rules could be optimized for their size.

A large scale game doesn't need detailed rules like what specific weapon a unit has, only that it has a special/heavy weapon which uses abstracted stats. Conversely, a smaller scale game wants to know fine details like this model has an axe, this one has a sword, this one has a flamer, etc.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I've literally found it easier to persuade people to play older editions than I have to get them to play the edition of the day at smaller point values, and that's been true since I felt the need to start doing that in 6th.

Also, small point value games aren't a fantastic solution in 8th, since the entire ruleset has been rebuilt from the ground up to cater to larger model counts and more Big Nasty Thingies - you can agree not to bring "broken" stuff, or BNTs, or any other restrictions you like, but it's not going to prevent perverse outcomes and odd situations arising from that new paradigm. Durability is a big one - small point value games in 8th can be very "swingy", with the potential for units to drop like flies and leave your army decimated very quickly.

I don't really see how that's much different to where we are at with 2k games in all honesty!

I'm guess I'm lucky in that both local meta's I've been in of people who are happy to play whatever point level. Someone says "anyone up for a game, 1200pts" or whatever and someone is always up for it.

There's deffo been an inflation in terms of models per point. That said, there's nothing stopping you playing smaller games if that's what tickles your tits. I've recently been playing a bunch of games at around 750pts/40PL and it's been great fun. Never really understood this mentality of c. 2K points being the only way to play 40K.

Fun fact: the 750pt Ork list I've used my last couple of games has like 10 fewer models than the original Waaagh Ghazghkull 2000pt army from WD134/Ere We Go.

Problem I find is, at my place, the weekly community games are 2k points and there is nothing I can do to stop that. So I either cut down my games to friendly games I play maybe once or twice a month or I bring buckets full of orks every week and continue with the masses. XD

The answer is yes because; As pointed out above, if you want to sell Knights (or any model pointed in the game40x or more than most armies basic troops), balancing them against infantry requires LOTS of infantry AND, like all questions of this nature for GW, GW is out to sell models!!! I am not saying this is wrong, evil etc, just never ever forget it. The length the game has been around means people have collections. To sell those people more models means the game needs to require more models. Primaris and the elimination of "old" marines means buy more models, etc etc.

Play at lower points. Play garagehammer style with people who will agree to leave the super heavies out (or of course, play super heavies vs superheavies themselves without the 4-8 point models (although in truth they are only the most obvious point cost comparison, ANY model over 200 points requires 200+ points of infantry to balance, and for some armies that means lots of models))

*Looks at my opponent's Knight army with all of 6 models.*

Nope.

 vipoid wrote:
*Looks at my opponent's Knight army with all of 6 models.*

Nope.

Not to mention Custodes, who can easily run with under 20.

It's a good point. If you don't want a lot of models, you don't have to play Orks. And even if you do play Orks, you don't have to play Green Tide (even if it is the strongest build).

 Yodhrin wrote:
I've literally found it easier to persuade people to play older editions than I have to get them to play the edition of the day at smaller point values, and that's been true since I felt the need to start doing that in 6th.

Sounds like a player problem not a GW problem. If GW would tomorrow double the point costs of all units, do you think those same people would be perfectly fine playing 2000 point games with half as many models than before, or would they instead just demand 4000 point games?

 Crimson wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
I've literally found it easier to persuade people to play older editions than I have to get them to play the edition of the day at smaller point values, and that's been true since I felt the need to start doing that in 6th.

Sounds like a player problem not a GW problem. If GW would tomorrow double the point costs of all units, do you think those same people would be perfectly fine playing 2000 point games with half as many models than before, or would they instead just demand 4000 point games?

When Index were released nearly everything was more expensive, specially vehicles (Like drop pods or rhinos going from 30 and something points to 70 and something) and the complaints where MASSIVE.

I liked that more because I'm more in the line of making things more expensive for balancing than making things cheaper exactly for this reason. But people DON'T want to make choices. They want to put EVERYTHING in their armies.

 Galas wrote:

I liked that more because I'm more in the line of making things more expensive for balancing than making things cheaper exactly for this reason. But people DON'T want to make choices. They want to put EVERYTHING in their armies.

And I get that, it is fun to do that sometimes. But sometimes it is fun to play in more combat patrol style. What I don't get are the people who only want to play in one way; doesn't that get boring?

I have found that banning anything with the TITANIC keyword makes 2k games actually fun again. I would also like to see the game go back down to 1750 or 1850 as the default size again.

Play Kill Team or Necromunda if you want a skirmish game. There is nothing wrong with wanting skirmish style play but leave normal 40k alone as its insane scale and types of models is one of the main appeals.

Not enough, its a game of armies. How could you possibly say there are too many.

 buddha wrote:
Play Kill Team or Necromunda if you want a skirmish game. There is nothing wrong with wanting skirmish style play but leave normal 40k alone as its insane scale and types of models is one of the main appeals.

You know, playing 40K at 1000 points or so is a perfectly valid way to play, and pretty different from skirmish like Killteam or Necromunda.

 Crimson wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
I've literally found it easier to persuade people to play older editions than I have to get them to play the edition of the day at smaller point values, and that's been true since I felt the need to start doing that in 6th.

Sounds like a player problem not a GW problem. If GW would tomorrow double the point costs of all units, do you think those same people would be perfectly fine playing 2000 point games with half as many models than before, or would they instead just demand 4000 point games?

Well, they never did before, and the fact that most of them are willing to play older editions with, you know, smaller armies kind of undermines your attempted point

It's a psychological thing - 6th+ 40K is "supposed" to have big armies, so that's what most people want to play. It doesn't make sense, which is exactly my point, but it's just the way things are and the way they always have been - a standard emerges, usually due to the combination of the incentives of the rules for that edition and the needs of tournaments, and most people adhere to it because "that's what everyone does" or "because I might want to play in a tournament one day(announcer voice: they never do)". If GW changes the way the game works, a period of adjustment happens and then folk settle in to the new standard, and that can work in either direction - you don't see people clamoring to up the points of a typical AoS game so they can include all of the 300+ Skavenslaves they painted for 8th WHFB do you, not in everyday pickup play.

Besides which, "you can just play smaller games then" can be turned around just as easily - you could always play bigger games, you could always play Apocalypse, you could always run a "no holds barred" game night, so why is catering to the people who held their breath and sqweamed and sqweamed until they were almost sick to get huge game sizes and superheavies and special characters to be the norm reasonable, but catering to the folk who just want to play the platoon-to-company skirmish wargame 40K was designed and conceived as is beyond the pale?

As for the "just play X then" garbage - seriously? Your response to someone who feels the game has been bloated beyond all recognition so GW can sell big stompy things is "collect Knights then, nyeeeh"? Or to suggest they collect the elite army that replaced the last elite army when it got too big to really be considered elite anymore(due to aforementioned bloat), which itself replaced the previous elite army that was no longer elite(ditto)? So in a couple of years, they can choose between expanding their super-duper-elite army which is now merely super-elite, or dump them to collect the new super-duper-elite army? Hilarious.

1500 pts is the most I've been willing to play at since 6th edition. But its all about what you're looking for in the game and what you want to get out of it.

Personally, the biggest problem is that while the model count has skyrocketed, the size of the board itself has actually shrunken a little over time (in 2nd edition we used to use a 4x8 board instead of the now-standard 4x6). More bodies jammed into a smaller space means less room for maneouvering (traditionally, the part of any wargame that is actually mentally interesting to interact with). I think it's also important to take into account the 'footprint' of the models rather than simply model count - knights and primarchs have giant bases with a footprint the size of a whole squad of infantry. Most marine units have 'upsized' their bases so they take up even more precious space on the table. Recently, I've discovered that increasing the density of LOS blockers on the board helps counteract this effect so if you like maneouver in your wargames and want more of it in 40k, that's a potential remedy.

Of course sheer time is another factor, I really do have better things to do with my life than watch you shuffle 200 termagants around, let alone purchase and paint 200 termagants myself.

Another thing that has been sticking out to me after playing other games and coming back to 40k is how often people with these gigantic units are rolling buckets of dice (like 40+ dice), finding all the 1s and rerolling them, then rolling to wound, finding all the 1s and rerolling them. Then after rolling a bunch of dice for armor saves and the ultimate end result of 2 straight minutes of rolling dice is... 1-2 wounds on something. It's a little anti-climactic to be honest.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Besides which, "you can just play smaller games then" can be turned around just as easily - you could always play bigger games, you could always play Apocalypse, you could always run a "no holds barred" game night, so why is catering to the people who held their breath and sqweamed and sqweamed until they were almost sick to get huge game sizes and superheavies and special characters to be the norm reasonable, but catering to the folk who just want to play the platoon-to-company skirmish wargame 40K was designed and conceived as is beyond the pale?

To be honest I kinda of agree with you but this is something you always do and I don't understand why.
Nobody sqweamed and sqweamed for super heavies. GW just saw that they could sell more of those by making them normal 40k, just like flyers, and they did.
Please, stop painting the other "group" as some kind of man children and the people that thinks like you do as a civilized club of gentleman. It doesn't help you make your opinion more emphatic. Just like Peregrine. And is something you always complaint when others do.

Let's be honest here, once GW started selling superheavy models putting them in normal 40k was inevitable and the only acceptable option. Apocalypse is an unplayable exercise in masochism, not a game, and people weren't going to accept paying $$$ for models that they don't get to use. GW's only failure was not implementing a 30k-style maximum percentage of your points that you could spend on LoW-class units.

Yes and no. I think there’s better rule systems if all you want is a game with <20 infantry, I liked the army inflation at first, 2nd edition marines for example felt way too small. However, I do agree, I don’t like the superheavies and flyers at this scale. I want small infantry detachment duking it out, not some crazy solo army killer that had to be scaled down to fit on the table or Air Force flying way too low. And allowing points for those has made hordes rather unwieldy. I’d say my favorite was when a “horde” army was maybe 100-120 models.

But I also don’t think just scaling down 8th to lower points works unless you have extra agreements with your opponent. 1000 pts might say be the horde size you want, but then you can still end up fighting a pure knight or flyer list and now your horde/balanced list doesn’t have enough points to buy the tools to fight it.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Besides which, "you can just play smaller games then" can be turned around just as easily - you could always play bigger games, you could always play Apocalypse, you could always run a "no holds barred" game night,

And people did that i previous editions. But please do not blame your inability to negotiate with people to play the sort of game you want on GW. GW doesn't force you to play 2000 point games. Nowhere in the rules it suggested that this is the only size of game you can play. I've played plenty of 1000 point and 1500 point 8th edition games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Let's be honest here, once GW started selling superheavy models putting them in normal 40k was inevitable and the only acceptable option. Apocalypse is an unplayable exercise in masochism, not a game, and people weren't going to accept paying $$$ for models that they don't get to use. GW's only failure was not implementing a 30k-style maximum percentage of your points that you could spend on LoW-class units.

That is fair. I think some such limitation would have been fine for matched.

 Peregrine wrote:
Let's be honest here, once GW started selling superheavy models putting them in normal 40k was inevitable and the only acceptable option. Apocalypse is an unplayable exercise in masochism, not a game, and people weren't going to accept paying $$$ for models that they don't get to use. GW's only failure was not implementing a 30k-style maximum percentage of your points that you could spend on LoW-class units.

I had always wonder why Apocalypse seemed to be pushed towards, put everything on the table and have a barely fun mess. Then trying to make the game more playable with some streamlined rules, and with some good missions to encourage rather than hinder the spectacle of it.

one of GWs big failing is getting a good player baseline. They throw away there apocalypse crowd for a half done in 40k version.