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 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You have no right to call the way people enjoy things "wrong".

Watch me: those people are wrong. They're wrong, much like if someone says a $1 fast food burger is the best hamburger ever

Who says it's not? What, you control everyone's taste buds now? You're such a perfect world class culinary visionary that you OBJECTIVELY know what everyone likes and have an even greater insight into their perception than even they do?

The sheer arrogance is astounding.

or that a child smearing their all over the walls has created a masterpiece worthy of putting in a museum. We can speculate about why they are wrong, but in the end they're still wrong.

No, they're not.

You think they're wrong, but you have no authority or right to categorically call someone's opinion "wrong". You can call the facts they're based on wrong. You can call something "wrong" in the eyes of morality and legality. You cannot call someone's enjoyment of a little toy soldiers game "wrong" and not expect people to laugh at your utter lunacy.

It'd be great if 40k was a more balanced, tightly written ruleset that could be played with any seriousness at tournament level, and there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting it to be. The trouble is, GW have shown time after time after time that they can not or will not design it that way. Hoping that they will ever increase the competence of their design staff or the quality of their rules is ultimately futile because it just isn't going to happen.

Realistically, you have a choice. Either you can enjoy 40k for the complete mess of balance it is, putting self-imposed limitations on unit selection/allies/what have you in the interests of making it more enjoyable for both players...or you can move to better designed games, if a competitive ruleset is what you are after.

Again, it'd be fantastic if 40k was a better tactical wargame than it is...but it isn't, and there's no indication that it ever will be, so there's no point complaining about it. GW do enough right from a business standpoint these days that their financial status is no longer endangered, so there's no reason for them to alter their design methods - and thus they won't.

Life is too short to pick out 40k's many faults or to hang on to a forlorn belief that it'll ever be anything other than a shambles. Such a broken mess can be enjoyed, but it requires you to make a conscious effort not to break it. Does that mean the rules are criminally overpriced? Abso-bloody-exactly it does - and that, like everything else, is just something one has to accept if they want to play 40k.

 MalusCalibur wrote:
It'd be great if 40k was a more balanced, tightly written ruleset that could be played with any seriousness at tournament level, and there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting it to be. The trouble is, GW have shown time after time after time that they can not or will not design it that way. Hoping that they will ever increase the competence of their design staff or the quality of their rules is ultimately futile because it just isn't going to happen.

Realistically, you have a choice. Either you can enjoy 40k for the complete mess of balance it is, putting self-imposed limitations on unit selection/allies/what have you in the interests of making it more enjoyable for both players...or you can move to better designed games, if a competitive ruleset is what you are after.

Again, it'd be fantastic if 40k was a better tactical wargame than it is...but it isn't, and there's no indication that it ever will be, so there's no point complaining about it. GW do enough right from a business standpoint these days that their financial status is no longer endangered, so there's no reason for them to alter their design methods - and thus they won't.

Life is too short to pick out 40k's many faults or to hang on to a forlorn belief that it'll ever be anything other than a shambles. Such a broken mess can be enjoyed, but it requires you to make a conscious effort not to break it. Does that mean the rules are criminally overpriced? Abso-bloody-exactly it does - and that, like everything else, is just something one has to accept if they want to play 40k.

Right. That's why I don't play or buy GW stuff anymore. It isn't worth it.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You cannot call someone's enjoyment of a little toy soldiers game "wrong" and not expect people to laugh at your utter lunacy.

Sorry, but like it or not game design is not a purely subjective matter of taste. There is such a thing as good and bad game design, and GW's rules fall clearly on the bad side. If all you have to fall back on is "ALL OPINIONS ARE JUST OPINIONS" instead of a defense of how the rules in question are good then it's an implicit concession that I'm right.


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 MalusCalibur wrote:
but it isn't, and there's no indication that it ever will be

Disagree on this. GW has already made better games that fix 40k's problems, they just need to apply those lessons to 40k. It would require a major change in company culture and probably firing the incompetent people that are obstructing change, but it is absolutely a possible thing that we should demand.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Narrative missions or homebrew units, rules or wargear means straying outside of the matched play rule framework. Matched Play has a defined set of missions, units and even wargear.

But homebrew stuff isn't part of GW's version of narrative play, and it isn't part of the "matched play with narrative missions" concept. For example, NOVA's narrative event that you mentioned required strict RAW matched play armies with no custom units/wargear/whatever permitted. How many people are actually making up their own rules, vs. playing with GW's rules and telling a story about it later?

And regarding balance: most players don't want a balance solution that takes away options.

Most players are wrong. 40k is a bloated mess of options that shouldn't exist, primarily because way too many people have bought into the GW myth that anything that doesn't have explicit rules on the datasheet doesn't exist in the fluff. Consolidating the bloat into a smaller set of genuinely different and interesting options would be good for everyone, narrative or competitive.

I mean rolling Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves into C:SM and then giving them supplements would make everything about the Marine mess better, but how many would actually be happy with that? Not as many as we'd like to believe I'd guess.

Everyone that doesn't play marines would be happy, for a start. And the issue here isn't narrative vs. competitive rules, it's people being ignorant of good game design principles and demanding special snowflake rules for every single sub-faction of space marines (but no other army!) even when it's bad for the overall health of the game.

So I'm posting phone so I'll just skip breaking the tags up here and hit your points in order:
1. Your assumption of how GW sees Narrative is something that James would disagree with in the podcast as he talks about narrative gaming and making your own units and rules for the game.

2. "Most people are wrong." Seems a bit "holier-than-thou" where you decide that your opinion is more important than everyone else's.

3. I mentioned the dislike of a roll up option namely based on how much anger those players show when the topic comes up (as well the salt Black Templar players still show). It would likely be better for the game to streamline the factions this way, but with how many people are about being told they're going lose something, even if it's something like having their own book, they don't like losing something they see makes their army "special".

I agree with Pergrine on one thing: most players do not understand the game design. I just count Peregrine amount that number. Far too often do they confuse their personal preferences to objective facts.

There are many different sorts of games, and that you do not like certain type of a game doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad game. It is possible that the designers had design goals which do not match your personal preferences. Now, you can point out number of pretty much objectively bad design choices in 40K; the detachment CP change for example. There the designers flatly stated their reasoning for the change, said what they wanted to achieve with it. Yet, the rule they wrote didn't achieve their objective, it did the opposite. Now that is bad game design, they failed to achieve their stated design goal.

However, I think that in general the writers have never intended 40K to be the sort of game Peregrine wants it to be, so half of the complaints come across as 'this strawberry cake is objectively bad because it is not a chocolate cake.' The new Apocalypse seems to have design goals that more closely align with Peregrine's though.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You cannot call someone's enjoyment of a little toy soldiers game "wrong" and not expect people to laugh at your utter lunacy.

Sorry, but like it or not game design is not a purely subjective matter of taste.

Sorry, but it really is a matter of taste.

I can agree that a game might have excellent mechanics and design, but I don't have to like it, because it might not fill something I want. In a similar vein, just because you think the game is flawed doesn't mean that it's objectively terrible as a game and source of enjoyment.

Get over it, and accept your judgement isn't the Only True Way.

If all you have to fall back on is "ALL OPINIONS ARE JUST OPINIONS" instead of a defense of how the rules in question are good then it's an implicit concession that I'm right.

Nah.
I'm right, you're objectively wrong and your use of a mocking all-caps is implicit concession that I'm right.

Isn't this how your arguments work?

How does better balance make it more difficult to create your own units and rules? At that point you aren't playing the base game anyway, but a version that suits your preference.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
1. Your assumption of how GW sees Narrative is something that James would disagree with in the podcast as he talks about narrative gaming and making your own units and rules for the game.

But how many people do this in reality? Compared to how many people play either straight matched play or matched play with narrative missions?

2. "Most people are wrong." Seems a bit "holier-than-thou" where you decide that your opinion is more important than everyone else's.

An appeal to popularity is a fallacy, not a valid argument.

3. I mentioned the dislike of a roll up option namely based on how much anger those players show when the topic comes up (as well the salt Black Templar players still show). It would likely be better for the game to streamline the factions this way, but with how many people are about being told they're going lose something, even if it's something like having their own book, they don't like losing something they see makes their army "special".

Then let them complain. The greater good of the game requires it, and I suspect that most of them will fall in line and keep buying just like with previous changes.


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 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
In a similar vein, just because you think the game is flawed doesn't mean that it's objectively terrible as a game and source of enjoyment.

You're confusing "this particular rule is terrible" with "this game is not valid as a source of enjoyment". The fact that you enjoy the background fiction and how cool your models look on the table doesn't change the fact that IGOUGO and 40k's rules bloat are poor game design.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
1. Your assumption of how GW sees Narrative is something that James would disagree with in the podcast as he talks about narrative gaming and making your own units and rules for the game.

But how many people do this in reality? Compared to how many people play either straight matched play or matched play with narrative missions?

2. "Most people are wrong." Seems a bit "holier-than-thou" where you decide that your opinion is more important than everyone else's.

An appeal to popularity is a fallacy, not a valid argument.

3. I mentioned the dislike of a roll up option namely based on how much anger those players show when the topic comes up (as well the salt Black Templar players still show). It would likely be better for the game to streamline the factions this way, but with how many people are about being told they're going lose something, even if it's something like having their own book, they don't like losing something they see makes their army "special".

Then let them complain. The greater good of the game requires it, and I suspect that most of them will fall in line and keep buying just like with previous changes.

1. Apparently not enough of them.

2. Claiming authority is also a fallacy.

3. Like you're complaining? I mean if the solution id to "let them complain" then it seems equally valid to apply that here as well.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
2. "Most people are wrong." Seems a bit "holier-than-thou" where you decide that your opinion is more important than everyone else's.

An appeal to popularity is a fallacy, not a valid argument.

And your appeal to your own judgement's superiority is delusional, not a valid argument.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
In a similar vein, just because you think the game is flawed doesn't mean that it's objectively terrible as a game and source of enjoyment.

You're confusing "this particular rule is terrible" with "this game is not valid as a source of enjoyment". The fact that you enjoy the background fiction and how cool your models look on the table doesn't change the fact that IGOUGO and 40k's rules bloat are poor game design.

But it *does* change that I can enjoy IGOUGO and 40k's rules. And unfortunately, you have no authority to claim that I'm "wrong" for enjoying that.

Scream all you like that I'm wrong, but that's simply not true.

 Peregrine wrote:
The fact that you enjoy the background fiction and how cool your models look on the table doesn't change the fact that IGOUGO and 40k's rules bloat are poor game design.

Yep. This shows how you don't understand game design. There indeed are problems in 40K relating to both of the concept you mention IGOUGO and the amount of rules. But neither of those things in themselves make a game automatically bad. IGOUGO causes problems in conjunction with weak cover rules, front loaded stratagem usage and general increase in killyness. Alternate activation would have it's own share of issues it could potentially cause with other aspects of the game. Similarly the amount of granularity in rules is very much a matter of preference, and applies to many games. In some RPGs there is just stats for a generic assault rifle, in some others there are pages filled with rules for slightly different models. Neither of these approaches is objectively better. Now, in a wargame a lot of options that are poorly balanced is a problem, but there the problem is the balance, not the options themselves.

 Crimson wrote:
However, I think that in general the writers have never intended 40K to be the sort of game Peregrine wants it to be, so half of the complaints come across as 'this strawberry cake is objectively bad because it is not a chocolate cake.' The new Apocalypse seems to have design goals that more closely align with Peregrine's though.

You were so close to being right with the idea of "GW's rules don't achieve their objectives", but now you miss it again. The things I criticize are largely conflicts between GW's vision for the game and the execution of the rules. GW tells us they want a large-scale game where titans, tank squadrons, etc, exist and can wipe out entire units at a time. And much of the rules bloat goes directly against this concept for the game. It doesn't matter whether a unit has a power axe or power sword in a game of that scale. It just adds to the word count of the rules, makes the learning curve more difficult for new players, and encourages players to obsess over small percentages in dice optimization instead of playing the game.


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 Crimson wrote:
But neither of those things in themselves make a game automatically bad.

Wrong. IGOUGO is objectively bad design. It vastly reduces the amount of gameplay depth that is possible, promotes a non-interactive experience where one player can go get lunch for half an hour and not miss anything, and badly damages suspension of disbelief and the narrative element at the heart of the game. Even in a perfectly balanced game it's still a terrible mechanic that still has all of those problems. And there is zero advantage to using it, outside of GW's stubborn insistence on keeping 30 year old mechanics just because they're "how 40k has always been".

Alternate activation would have it's own share of issues it could potentially cause with other aspects of the game.

{citation needed}

Obviously alternating activation would require changes to other rules, but an alternating activation game in the 40k universe would not have anywhere near the level of inherent design flaws as IGOUGO.

Similarly the amount of granularity in rules is very much a matter of preference, and applies to many games. In some RPGs there is just stats for a generic assault rifle, in some others there are pages filled with rules for slightly different models. Neither of these approaches is objectively better. Now, in a wargame a lot of options that are poorly balanced is a problem, but there the problem is the balance, not the options themselves.

Nope. Level of detail is a choice, but it's a choice that depends on the scale of the game. If you want your game to be playable you have to scale down the level of detail as the model/unit count increases, otherwise you get bogged down in obsessing over irrelevant details instead of playing the game. Does it matter if one rifle has 1% more damage against some targets in a game where a titan kills a whole squad of riflemen in one shot? No, and that makes that level of detail rules bloat in a game where the titan exists.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
However, I think that in general the writers have never intended 40K to be the sort of game Peregrine wants it to be, so half of the complaints come across as 'this strawberry cake is objectively bad because it is not a chocolate cake.' The new Apocalypse seems to have design goals that more closely align with Peregrine's though.

You were so close to being right with the idea of "GW's rules don't achieve their objectives", but now you miss it again. The things I criticize are largely conflicts between GW's vision for the game and the execution of the rules. GW tells us they want a large-scale game where titans, tank squadrons, etc, exist and can wipe out entire units at a time. And much of the rules bloat goes directly against this concept for the game. It doesn't matter whether a unit has a power axe or power sword in a game of that scale. It just adds to the word count of the rules, makes the learning curve more difficult for new players, and encourages players to obsess over small percentages in dice optimization instead of playing the game.

Like it or not, 40K as their main game is the kitchen sink game. It has everything. Now you might not like that. You might think that games that focuses to one thing suit your tastes better. Killteam is about small scale squad level skirmishes and Apocalypse is about large scale battle with titans. You basically want 40K to be Apocalypse. But it isn't. However, Apocalypse exist, so if that's the approach you prefer, you now have the option to play that.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
However, I think that in general the writers have never intended 40K to be the sort of game Peregrine wants it to be, so half of the complaints come across as 'this strawberry cake is objectively bad because it is not a chocolate cake.' The new Apocalypse seems to have design goals that more closely align with Peregrine's though.

You were so close to being right with the idea of "GW's rules don't achieve their objectives", but now you miss it again. The things I criticize are largely conflicts between GW's vision for the game and the execution of the rules. GW tells us they want a large-scale game where titans, tank squadrons, etc, exist and can wipe out entire units at a time. And much of the rules bloat goes directly against this concept for the game. It doesn't matter whether a unit has a power axe or power sword in a game of that scale. It just adds to the word count of the rules, makes the learning curve more difficult for new players, and encourages players to obsess over small percentages in dice optimization instead of playing the game.

They want all that stuff in the game, sure, but that doesn't make it their objective.

Remember, James said his job was to try to capture the feel of the models and the lore in the rules. It's probably safe to call that his objective, if not his job description.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
But it *does* change that I can enjoy IGOUGO and 40k's rules. And unfortunately, you have no authority to claim that I'm "wrong" for enjoying that.

If you enjoy a non-interactive game where I can go get lunch for half an hour while you take your turn and not miss anything over a fluid and interactive game of action and reaction where both players are actively engaged at all times, well, I think you're self-evidently wrong about this and I have all the authority I need to say it.


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 ClockworkZion wrote:
Remember, James said his job was to try to capture the feel of the models and the lore in the rules. It's probably safe to call that his objective, if not his job description.

Their job is to produce a functioning game. And it is entirely possible to capture the feel of the models and background fiction without getting into the current state of absurd rules bloat. Did everyone play 5th edition with no feel for the background fiction and no enjoyment of their cool models just because there were no stratagems or different rules for different paint schemes and all power weapons had the same rules? Of course not. If James thinks that generating this kind of nonsense is required to capture the feeling of 40k then he is incompetent and should be fired.


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 Crimson wrote:
Like it or not, 40K as their main game is the kitchen sink game. It has everything. Now you might not like that. You might think that games that focuses to one thing suit your tastes better. Killteam is about small scale squad level skirmishes and Apocalypse is about large scale battle with titans. You basically want 40K to be Apocalypse. But it isn't. However, Apocalypse exist, so if that's the approach you prefer, you now have the option to play that.

40k is already about Apocalypse. Your argument has zero credibility when a Warlord titan is a perfectly legal 40k unit with 40k rules and even in a standard 2000 point game you can take an army of nothing but superheavy walkers. And if 40k is going to be Apocalypse in all but name then it needs to have the appropriate level of detail for that scale.

Now, would I prefer a situation where 40k was scaled down to roughly a current 1000 point game and all of the Apocalypse-scale stuff was removed? Absolutely, and in that case it would make sense to have a higher level of detail in 40k, somewhere between the precise simulationist approach of of Kill Team and the heavy abstraction of Apocalypse. But that is not the reality we are dealing with here.

If you enjoy a non-interactive game where I can go get lunch for half an hour while you take your turn and not miss anything over a fluid and interactive game of action and reaction where both players are actively engaged at all times, well, I think you're self-evidently wrong about this and I have all the authority I need to say it.

See, if you would have made a real argument, in polite form, you would've had a higher chance of actually achieveing support.

IGOUGO is so old and stale now as a concept that it practically needs an archaeologist to fully understand it.

It's an artefact of the game's roots in the 1970s and it shows.

Literally every other game I've played since 7th knocked the stuffing out of any enthusiasm I had for 40K has employed methods of keeping both players engaged.

 Azreal13 wrote:
IGOUGO is so old and stale now as a concept that it practically needs an archaeologist to fully understand it.

It's an artefact of the game's roots in the 1970s and it shows.

Literally every other game I've played since 7th knocked the stuffing out of any enthusiasm I had for 40K has employed methods of keeping both players engaged.

That is also true.
Igougo is really an issue.

 Peregrine wrote:
It doesn't matter whether a unit has a power axe or power sword in a game of that scale.

It does if the background is important enough for you to want to have delineation between the different weapon types.

GW tried going down the they're all just 'weapons' road once before, with the initial release of Epic 40K, and it was almost universally reviled, resulting in them adding weapon options back in. They did it again when they consolidated non-powered melee weapons into a single 'Close Combat Weapons' category for 3rd edition 40K, and once again the players hated it.

You may personally be a fan of having things consolidated, and that's fine. It doesn't make your preference objectively better for the game.

Wrong. IGOUGO is objectively bad design. It vastly reduces the amount of gameplay depth that is possible, promotes a non-interactive experience where one player can go get lunch for half an hour and not miss anything, and badly damages suspension of disbelief and the narrative element at the heart of the game. Even in a perfectly balanced game it's still a terrible mechanic that still has all of those problems. And there is zero advantage to using it, outside of GW's stubborn insistence on keeping 30 year old mechanics just because they're "how 40k has always been".

Conversely, it's simple to understand, generally doesn't require players to track which units have activated yet, and doesn't result in weird imbalances from one army having a significantly different unit count to the other.

And you can't just discount the resistance to change. The fact that the game has 'always' been like that is a very good reason to not change it, because then it becomes, you know, not the same game. Which is obviously a problem for people who like the game as it is.


You seriously need to dial down the rhetoric. There is certainly a case to be made for the advantages of alternating activation over IGOUGO, but you're not going to convince anyone of its merits so long as you persist in beating people over the head with your opinion as if it's inscribed by a mystical superbeing on stone tablets. People aren't automatically wrong for disagreeing with you, regardless of how valid you personally think your opinion may be.




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 Peregrine wrote:

If you enjoy a non-interactive game where I can go get lunch for half an hour while you take your turn ...

Your attitude in this thread would suggest that this would be preferable to having you standing there on the other side of the table the whole time.

The time during your opponent's turn, even if we're ignoring things like saving throws and overwatch, is only 'non-interactive' if you choose to make it so. Gaming is a social pastime.

Their job is to produce a functioning game..

No, it isn't. Their job is to produce a game that sells.

All the evidence we have access to would seem to suggest that they are achieving this objective.

 Peregrine wrote:

Their job is to produce a functioning game. And it is entirely possible to capture the feel of the models and background fiction without getting into the current state of absurd rules bloat. Did everyone play 5th edition with no feel for the background fiction and no enjoyment of their cool models just because there were no stratagems or different rules for different paint schemes and all power weapons had the same rules? Of course not. If James thinks that generating this kind of nonsense is required to capture the feeling of 40k then he is incompetent and should be fired.

I feel like you don't seem to understand that jobs can have multiple objectives or goals.

And 5th had some of the least balanced rulesets, random tables and while it had a decent core considering the years of built up bloat leading to it (and even then I remember the rampant complaining about the rules at the time). So this sounds like nostalgia and not much else.

 Peregrine wrote:

40k is already about Apocalypse. Your argument has zero credibility when a Warlord titan is a perfectly legal 40k unit with 40k rules and even in a standard 2000 point game you can take an army of nothing but superheavy walkers. And if 40k is going to be Apocalypse in all but name then it needs to have the appropriate level of detail for that scale.

Yeah. One can do that. Most people don't. Have you ever seen a Warlord titan to be used in a 40K game? Because I haven't.

Now, would I prefer a situation where 40k was scaled down to roughly a current 1000 point game and all of the Apocalypse-scale stuff was removed? Absolutely, and in that case it would make sense to have a higher level of detail in 40k, somewhere between the precise simulationist approach of of Kill Team and the heavy abstraction of Apocalypse. But that is not the reality we are dealing with here.

The reality is that as their main game it needs to be many things to many different people. This may lead it to be 'worse' in dealing with specialised things certain ways than several more specialised games would be. But several more specialised games would have never achieved the mass appeal 40K has. If you have one game for Knights, one game for flyers one game for individually equipable Deathwatch killteams and one game for platoon level infantry but not a game you can use all of these things, then the playerbase fractures. Now GW has recently started to make more specialised games, but they understand the importance of most things being usable in 40K. Whatever models you like, you can usually use them in 40K, and find an opponent.

 insaniak wrote:
It does if the background is important enough for you to want to have delineation between the different weapon types.

What delineation is there? From a thematic point of view they all work the same, the only difference is the small percentage differences between STR +1 AP -2 and STR +2 AP -1. That isn't about background fiction, it's obsessive dice optimization. And the game worked just fine in 5th edition when you bought your sergeant a generic power weapon that represented them having something better than the basic sword.

Conversely, it's simple to understand, generally doesn't require players to track which units have activated yet, and doesn't result in weird imbalances from one army having a significantly different unit count to the other.

You're talking about a level of simplicity that only matters when dealing with small children. Anyone capable of playing a game like 40k at all can understand how alternating activation works.

As for differences in unit counts, this is a myth that keeps coming up and it keeps being wrong. There is no inherent balance issue here because both large units and MSU have their own advantages. MSU gives you higher activation count at the expense of each individual activation being relatively weak, expensive powerful units have less flexibility in timing their activations but much greater ability to take advantage of a fleeting opportunity (such as an enemy unit being caught out of cover) before the other player can react. The inherent pressure ends up being towards a relatively balanced list that has units of both types to maximize strategic flexibility. And the idea that this is an impossible problem to cope with seems to be repeated almost exclusively by people who have never played an alternating activation game.

And you can't just discount the resistance to change. The fact that the game has 'always' been like that is a very good reason to not change it, because then it becomes, you know, not the same game. Which is obviously a problem for people who like the game as it is.

I absolutely can discount resistance to change. Clinging to bad mechanics because you're afraid of change is never good design. GW is just very fortunate that their advantages in background fiction and retail sales are enough to keep them ahead of the competition, because "we have to keep doing this bad thing because it's not the same game if we don't" is a great recipe for having a dead game that was replaced by competitors who weren't stuck in 1980.


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 Crimson wrote:
Yeah. One can do that. Most people don't. Have you ever seen a Warlord titan to be used in a 40K game? Because I haven't.

Yep, along with various other "smaller" units. I'm pretty sure both of us have seen IK armies, IG taking multiple Baneblades, etc. Like it or not 40k is what used to be Apocalypse, the days of it being a company-scale infantry game are far in the past.

The reality is that as their main game it needs to be many things to many different people. This may lead it to be 'worse' in dealing with specialised things certain ways than several more specialised games would be. But several more specialised games would have never achieved the mass appeal 40K has. If you have one game for Knights, one game for flyers one game for individually equipable Deathwatch killteams and one game for platoon level infantry but not a game you can use all of these things, then the playerbase fractures. Now GW has recently started to make more specialised games, but they understand the importance of most things being usable in 40K. Whatever models you like, you can usually use them in 40K, and find an opponent.

Having everyone be able to use all of their models in 40k is a fine goal, but it's one that requires a heavily abstracted Apocalypse-style ruleset to work well. You can use your Deathwatch kill team models, but rules-wise they're going to have a standard set of unit rules and much of their customization is going to be aesthetic. And what is wrong with having aesthetic customization? Why does every single choice in modeling or painting need to be represented with special snowflake rules? What happened to building and painting a model because it looks cool, not because it is required by the rules?

(The answer is that GW's legal department happened, and for some incomprehensible reason the players have bought into the myth that there needs to be a 1:1 match between rules and model kits.)

 Peregrine wrote:

What delineation is there? From a thematic point of view they all work the same, the only difference is the small percentage differences between STR +1 AP -2 and STR +2 AP -1.

Yes, the only difference is that they are different.

You're talking about a level of simplicity that only matters when dealing with small children. Anyone capable of playing a game like 40k at all can understand how alternating activation works.

Sure, they can. Anyone capable of playing a game like 40K can understand all sorts of wonderful, complicated concepts. That doesn't meant that all of those concepts need to be in the same game, or that doing so doesn't add complexity and therefore an extra barrier to learning to play.

'I do all my stuff, and then you do all your stuff' is easier to learn. It's less of a learning curve than having to figure out the intricacies of how units interact with staggered activation and all of the various tactical implications that has on gameplay.

If your objective is a more tactical game where the order of operations is intended to have a substantial impact, then sure, alternating activation is probably preferable. If your objective a is an easy game that doesn't need to have a lot of depth and exists largely to enable people to push cool models around a board for a couple of hours, (which, ultimately, is what 40K has always been about, whether we all wanted to accept that or not) then IGOUGO is just fine.

As for differences in unit counts, this is a myth that keeps coming up and it keeps being wrong.

It really isn't. If I have 5 units, and you have 30, then unless you have a system that limits players to activating the same number of units each turn (which is horrible, and just stops people from using horde armies entirely) you effectively wind up back playing IGOUGO.

 Peregrine wrote:
Having everyone be able to use all of their models in 40k is a fine goal, but it's one that requires a heavily abstracted Apocalypse-style ruleset to work well. You can use your Deathwatch kill team models, but rules-wise they're going to have a standard set of unit rules and much of their customization is going to be aesthetic. And what is wrong with having aesthetic customization? Why does every single choice in modeling or painting need to be represented with special snowflake rules? What happened to building and painting a model because it looks cool, not because it is required by the rules?

Because a lot of people like choosing things and them to have an impact in the game, even if that impact is minuscule. I even agree with you that some options could be easily be consolidated. Personally I'd be fine with just having 'power weapons', some other people would disagree. It is really a matter of taste what level of granularity one likes. For example, to me the whole point of Deathwatch teams is that they're individuals with varied equipment, and abstracting that to mere aesthetic choice would feel highly unsatisfactory.

And again. If you like how the things are done in Apoc, why not play that? There literally is a GW game which seems to match your tastes. If a store sells both strawberry and chocolate cakes it is silly to complain that the strawberry cake doesn't taste like chocolate.

 insaniak wrote:
Yes, the only difference is that they are different.

They aren't meaningfully different. Which weapon your unit is armed with matters if, say, a model with a power sword is able to parry an opponent's blow in a duel while a model with a power spear always attacks first. Which weapon your unit is armed with doesn't matter if a power sword has 1% more damage against MEQs while a power maul has 1% more damage against GEQs. Far too many of 40k's choices are only different in obsessive dice optimization and not on any kind of conceptual or fluff level.

'I do all my stuff, and then you do all your stuff' is easier to learn. It's less of a learning curve than having to figure out the intricacies of how units interact with staggered activation and all of the various tactical implications that has on gameplay.

It's easier to learn in the same way that "all units hit and wound on a 4+" would be easier to learn. But I don't see anyone arguing that we should remove all BS/WS/STR stats in favor of all dice rolls needing a 4+.

If your objective is a more tactical game where the order of operations is intended to have a substantial impact, then sure, alternating activation is probably preferable. If your objective a is an easy game that doesn't need to have a lot of depth and exists largely to enable people to push cool models around a board for a couple of hours, (which, ultimately, is what 40K has always been about, whether we all wanted to accept that or not) then IGOUGO is just fine.

IOW, "if you want a good game then alternating activation is preferable, if you have low standards and just want to pretend that you are playing a game with all that money you spent on Citadel™ Miniatures™ IGOUGO is great". I think that's a pretty clear concession that you have no argument in favor of IGOUGO as a good mechanic.

It really isn't. If I have 5 units, and you have 30, then unless you have a system that limits players to activating the same number of units each turn (which is horrible) you effectively wind up back playing IGOUGO.

You really aren't, for several reasons:

1) This sort of disparity in unit count is not a given. Perhaps in an alternating activation game you don't have that level of extreme MSU. Perhaps it's more like 10 units vs 15 units instead of a 6:1 ratio.

2) Not all activations are equal. Your theory is nice, but the reality of alternating activation games is that you often end up with the first few activations of the turn being the most important ones and the extra units at the end being much less important. For example, maybe the player with five units uses their activations to annihilate some enemy stuff and then duck behind cover, allowing only a small percentage of the 30 enemy units to engage effectively at all. That forces the MSU player to put their most important activations up front and keeps things interesting. And maybe, depending on the system, it even prevents the MSU player from going to that extreme of MSU even if the rules technically allow it.

3) There's always the opportunity to interrupt with something more important. Yes, a turn can approximate IGOUGO depending on the order of activations, but it doesn't have to work that way. Unlike in an actual IGOUGO game the MSU player can always see an opportunity and do something with an important unit immediately instead of stalling with cannon fodder until they activate their important stuff army all at once. And there is a huge difference between a conscious decision to use a strategy that resembles IGOUGO and a game that forces IGOUGO as the only option.

4) Alternating activation does not require free choice of units. For example, a system where you randomly draw a token for which unit activates won't allow you to stall with irrelevant cannon fodder and likely keeps those irrelevant cannon fodder units off the table entirely.


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 Crimson wrote:
Because a lot of people like choosing things and them to have an impact in the game, even if that impact is minuscule.

And those are the people who are just plain wrong. Obsessing over irrelevant choices because you lack the understanding of dice math to realize how irrelevant they are is not something to be proud of, nor should a company design games to pander to people like that.

And again. If you like how the things are done in Apoc, why not play that?

Because that's irrelevant to the question of whether or not 40k is a good game, just like the existence of a better restaurant doesn't prevent me from leaving a 1-star review on a bad one.

Peregrine wrote:Wrong. IGOUGO is objectively bad design.

Wrong. IGOUGO is not objectively bad design.
You think it is bad design. You are not the arbitrator of what is or is not good or bad. You do not get to make judgements for other people, and claim yourself as being "correct".

Peregrine wrote:If you enjoy a non-interactive game where I can go get lunch for half an hour while you take your turn and not miss anything over a fluid and interactive game of action and reaction where both players are actively engaged at all times, well, I think you're self-evidently wrong about this and I have all the authority I need to say it.

Good luck proving that to anyone with more than half a brain cell.

If you don't like that kind of approach, you're welcome to it. But claiming you are the sole arbiter on if someone else is wrong or right about how they enjoy playing a little itty bitty toy soldier game to the point of arguing it online? That's a special kind of ignorance.

I think you're self-evidently wrong about that, and I have all the authority I need to say it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Peregrine wrote:And those are the people who are just plain wrong.

You are plain wrong.


Sorry mate, my opinion's fact now.

 Peregrine wrote:
They aren't meaningfully different.

If they have different rules, and the objective is to have them be represented as different things so that people can differentiate between a sword and an axe, then they're meaningfully different. The fact that you personally don't think that level of differentiation is warranted doesn't mean the rest of us don't want it, or that having it is intrinsically bad.

Which weapon your unit is armed with matters if, say, a model with a power sword is able to parry an opponent's blow in a duel while a model with a power spear always attacks first. Which weapon your unit is armed with doesn't matter if a power sword has 1% more damage against MEQs while a power maul has 1% more damage against GEQs. Far too many of 40k's choices are only different in obsessive dice optimization and not on any kind of conceptual or fluff level.

Yeah, you have that all twisted around. If the rules aren't 'meaningfully different' then what weapon your unit is armed with only matters on a conceptual or fluff level. The slightly different rules are only there to provide differentiation between the options.

It's easier to learn in the same way that "all units hit and wound on a 4+" would be easier to learn. But I don't see anyone arguing that we should remove all BS/WS/STR stats in favor of all dice rolls needing a 4+.

While we're making irrelevant points, I feel I should point out that ANZAC biscuits are inherently superior to all other types of biscuits. Although we should probably avoid going down the rabbit hole of 'crispy vs soft'...

IOW, "if you want a good game then alternating activation is preferable, if you have low standards and just want to pretend that you are playing a game with all that money you spent on Citadel™ Miniatures™ IGOUGO is great". I think that's a pretty clear concession that you have no argument in favor of IGOUGO as a good mechanic.

Yes, misrepresenting the argument and declaring yourself the winner is certainly the best way to make your point. Well done.

1) This sort of disparity in unit count is not a given. Perhaps in an alternating activation game you don't have that level of extreme MSU. Perhaps it's more like 10 units vs 15 units instead of a 6:1 ratio.

Or perhaps they're all My Little Ponies? Maybe one player could have one unit, and the other player could fling spitballs at them?


I'm done here. If you're really so set on the idea that 40K needs to be a different game in order to be playable, then go play a different game. 40K is never going to be the game that you appear to want it to be. Sitting here insisting that the people who like something you don't are inherently wrong is beyond pointless. Just move on, dude.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Wrong. IGOUGO is not objectively bad design.
You think it is bad design. You are not the arbitrator of what is or is not good or bad. You do not get to make judgements for other people, and claim yourself as being "correct".

So I see that, rather than address my criticism of IGOUGO as a mechanic and make any defense of it, you have nothing but "that's just your opinion, man". At least Insaniak, as wrong as he is, is attempting to try to make an argument.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Wrong. IGOUGO is not objectively bad design.
You think it is bad design. You are not the arbitrator of what is or is not good or bad. You do not get to make judgements for other people, and claim yourself as being "correct".

So I see that, rather than address my criticism of IGOUGO as a mechanic and make any defense of it, you have nothing but "that's just your opinion, man". At least Insaniak, as wrong as he is, is attempting to try to make an argument.

You realise that smudge is mostly just agitating you because you once again lacked basic manners?

Probably not.