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Tyranids are apparently pretty solid this edition, necrons have done worse in 8th but they where kinda powerful in 7th with their own rules, as well as hull points making them digustingly deadly vs tanks

 jasper76 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gnarlly wrote:
When "normal" 40k does away with its outdated IGOUGO turn system I will consider coming back.

Have you ever tested the back-and-forth style in 40k? It ends up being sheer madness, of the unfun variery, before you end Turn 1 every time I've tried, but I cant say I've tried with 8th rules.

I have tried a game of 8th 40k alternating unit movements and then alternating units in the shooting phase. You are still left with the problem of some units being taken out before they have an opportunity to act. This is one of the big reasons why I am using the new Apocalypse rules for "normal"-sized 40k games; all units get at least one turn to act as damage is not figured out until the end of the turn. It is also more realistic in the sense that an attacking force would not immediately know when a unit is destroyed in order to switch targeting to another unit.

I still think 8th is a bad ruleset >.< GW just does not write good ones for 40k it seems.

 jasper76 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gnarlly wrote:
When "normal" 40k does away with its outdated IGOUGO turn system I will consider coming back.

Have you ever tested the back-and-forth style in 40k? It ends up being sheer madness, of the unfun variery, before you end Turn 1 every time I've tried, but I cant say I've tried with 8th rules.

What exactly made AA 40k bad? I do think other changes need to be made, such as reducing weapon ranges and lethality, but even just a change to AA would be a positive.


To your OP, I dislike 8th enough that I no longer play 40k. 7th had massive problems, particularly the poor balance, but there were actually some good ideas at its core, just not well-executed ones. 8th lacks the strategic depth, immersion, and general mental engagement I enjoy. 8th is just as bad as 7th, but in different ways, such has the elimination of USRs, fixed rolls. absence of templates, mortal wounds, a "scale" that encompasses grots and Imperial Knights and Primarchs at the same time, lousy LOS that allows tanks to hide behind buildings yet fire everything from the antenna left exposed, terrain "rules" that hardly impact gameplay, and so on.

 jasper76 wrote:
I dont need any details on this, because I probably wont understand them anyway, but do Tyranids play good or bad in 8th? Necrons? (My two "big" 40k era armies are these) Did they get shafted or are they good armies in 8th?

Tyranids are in an okay place, Genestealers and Warriors are pretty good which is nice since they were trash in 5th-7th AFAIK. Synapse is pretty easy to maintain and gives some solid benefits. The rules are solid but the internal balance still needs some work.

Necrons had FNP replaced with coming back to life, but instead of it being at the end of the phase and failed models being gone, it's at the start of your turn, every turn until the entire unit is gone. This can make for a feast or famine experience, either the unit survives with 1 model, which becomes 10 models, or 0 models survive. Monoliths have some really wonky rules in 8th, not a lot of fun, but at least they won't get stuck on a tank trap for the entirety of the game or crash while arriving from DS. Living Metal lets vehicles heal a steady wound a turn which just feels really nice, especially because of the way damage on vehicles makes them worse, sometimes your opponent will bring you just below a bracket and you'll heal it right back at the start of your next turn. C'tan are a lot of fun in 8th, with a variety of different cool powers that are all more or less worth using and your opponent won't be able to just drown them in bolters like in previous editions because of the updated character rules.

@Blastar, I dont know what you mean by "AA 40k". Is that a club for recivering alcoholic gamers? I know what that is, but that is in principal an awesome idea, exposing people to table top gaming in a detox environment, which I've sort of been to something like that, just not abuse related. You sit there and play Pictiknary all day looking at Nurse Cratchet. Like so much of what you see in the movies is still true, and strangely on the substance abuse end, they dont rely on any kind of science, but rather the manifesto produced by their particular Christ figure (Bill Wilson, right?

I could go on and on and on about AA, they have complete and absolute hegemony over people who are charged with substance abuse issues because of their unnatural alliance with our court system. The door to the left leads to a love bombing cult and freedon, and the door to the left leads to prison and self degradation. Take your chances. And most people in that situation will choose the religion over imprisonment every time

It's really sick thing here in the US, and having said all that, if you drink too much and go to AA to try and get it under control or become abstinent, I support you 100%. I just dont like the relationship between AA and the courts.

It would honestly be more beneficial for the person to go to a legit therapists for a couple months and line there head back on, for your average Joe who just drinks too much

 jasper76 wrote:
@Blastar, I dont know what you mean by "AA 40k". Is that a club for recivering alcoholic gamers? I know what that is, but that is in principal an awesome idea, exposing people to table top gaming in a detox environment, which I've sort of been to something like that, just not abuse related. You sit there and play Pictiknary all day looking at Nurse Cratchet. Like so much of what you see in the movies is still true, and strangely on the substance abuse end, they dont rely on any kind of science, but rather the manifesto produced by their particular Christ figure (Bill Wilson, right?

I could go on and on and on about AA, they have complete and absolute hegemony over people who are charged with substance abuse issues because of their unnatural alliance with our court system. The door to the left leads to a love bombing cult and freedon, and the door to the left leads to prison and self degradation. Take your chances. And most people in that situation will choose the religion over imprisonment every time

It's really sick thing here in the US, and having said all that, if you drink too much and go to AA to try and get it under control or become abstinent, I support you 100%. I just dont like the relationship between AA and the courts.

It would honestly be more beneficial for the person to go to a legit therapists for a couple months and line there head back on, for your average Joe who just drinks too much

Alternating activations, players activate one unit and then let their opponent activate a unit until all units have been activated.

Any kind of community will probably help with alcohol problems, humans are social animals and lack of social interaction makes people go mad. I am sure I am not the only one who enjoys 40k for the community aspect, the miniatures are cool, the game has its ups and downs, it's the people that have kept me coming back.

AA means alternating activations, as opposed to the IGOUGO that 40k currently follows.

For what it's worth, personally I've found adapting 40k to alternating framework rather trivial and in every way a positive change. It does slow things a bit, meaning I'd say the sweet spot is around 1500 points, but above that there's the new and rather good Epicalypse ready to go

Now I haven't played in 7th ed, but from what I have seen in the rules, it doesn't seem to be much different for some armies. 8th was great for eldar, 7th was great for eldar. Marine did okey in7th, they do okey or good in 8th. Stuff that was really bad in 7th, stayed real bad in 8th.

But I do not have a hands on expiriance, so hard to judge how accurate such an observation could be.

8th has been over all positive. Though that isn't hard to do coming off of 7th. I'll say however the overly simplistic nature of the game ends up a little problematic sometimes. At first it felt like a breath of fresh air that would lead to a bloat free life.

Now however, I'm left wondering how wonky all the bare bones rules work, tend to miss things from the past and find the rule set is just as bloated but its bloated on a unit by unit basis as opposed to from the core rules.

Some good, some bad things they could make it very good if they just added some depth to the system, like with terrain for instance, making morale mean more than an all or nothing game. Like I wish you could suppress or shake units etc. Maybe more interesting ways of dealing damage than Mortal Wounds everywhere. Them figuring out how to properly cost transports and making them a more interesting choice.

Just a lot of ways that they could make it more interesting. As an aside I'll never wrap my head around a whole tank shooting from the tread or an ammo box on it.

BrianDavion wrote:
Tyranids are apparently pretty solid this edition, necrons have done worse in 8th but they where kinda powerful in 7th with their own rules, as well as hull points making them digustingly deadly vs tanks

"Pretty solid"

AHHAHAHAHHAHA, the worst Xeno army by as mile (whilsts its faction is literally carried by GSC) yet you say that Necrons are WORSE (when were the last time Tyranids took a serious TOP 3? Necrons do that from time to time at least)

KurtAngle2 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Tyranids are apparently pretty solid this edition, necrons have done worse in 8th but they where kinda powerful in 7th with their own rules, as well as hull points making them digustingly deadly vs tanks

"Pretty solid"

AHHAHAHAHHAHA, the worst Xeno army by as mile (whilsts its faction is literally carried by GSC) yet you say that Necrons are WORSE (when were the last time Tyranids took a serious TOP 3? Necrons do that from time to time at least)

Using tournament placing as a measure of how good a 40k army is just a stupid, stupid thing to do. I get on fine with my tyranids and have won a majority of my games. I think I've lost twice in the last two years playing twice a month on average.

Put simply if you want high level competitive play 8th (and 40k in general) is trash and always will be. If you want a fun time with some friends for throwing dice around 8th is the best 40k has ever been,

I didnt like 8th when it came out, I found it too abstracted and boring and I hate the command point system. Don't know where it is now and don't really care. I still follow the scene somewhat but don't play or paint anymore.

Still enjoying 8th but I'd agree bloat is definitely starting to show at this point.
I appreciate the rules updates and "living ruleset" idea but Im struggling to keep up of late =/

I'd also reiterate alpha strike / powerful shooting is dominating too much with HtH being an afterthought

 Sim-Life wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Tyranids are apparently pretty solid this edition, necrons have done worse in 8th but they where kinda powerful in 7th with their own rules, as well as hull points making them digustingly deadly vs tanks

"Pretty solid"

AHHAHAHAHHAHA, the worst Xeno army by as mile (whilsts its faction is literally carried by GSC) yet you say that Necrons are WORSE (when were the last time Tyranids took a serious TOP 3? Necrons do that from time to time at least)

Using tournament placing as a measure of how good a 40k army is just a stupid, stupid thing to do. I get on fine with my tyranids and have won a majority of my games. I think I've lost twice in the last two years playing twice a month on average.

Put simply if you want high level competitive play 8th (and 40k in general) is trash and always will be. If you want a fun time with some friends for throwing dice around 8th is the best 40k has ever been,

This is so BS on so many levels I don't even want to fully reply. Discreting the only real statistics we have on Highest level of play for 40K (which ARE tournaments) whilst simultaneously putting all your trust in your local 2 games per month is somewhat I wouldn't try to do even under narcotics.

I don't think Tyranids are meta relevant - but they are surely much more fun and effective to play in 8th than 7th unless you took all the flying hive tyrants.

Which is really... the issue. I struggle to see this version of 7th people describe. There was an impassable tier system - both of units and factions. Now if GW had rebalanced throughout the edition (like CA) maybe it would have worked, but they didn't.

I also guess if you only played with a group of friends, and say one guy played Orks, one played CSM, one played Tyranids and one played DE you wouldn't think it was too bad.

But then someone would turn up Eldar, or Tau, or Necrons (early in the edition, less so later on) or Marines with free transports or superfriends. And then it wouldn't be fun, it would be one-sided tablings. And if you had two of those armies face off against each other so often it would come down to who went first.

So going to a store with one of the above armies was essentially just miserable for all of 2016 and early 2017. This wasn't the LVO - just some guy who knew enough that Wraith Knight+Scat Bikes=good.

Karol wrote:
Now I haven't played in 7th ed, but from what I have seen in the rules, it doesn't seem to be much different for some armies. 8th was great for eldar, 7th was great for eldar. Marine did okey in7th, they do okey or good in 8th. Stuff that was really bad in 7th, stayed real bad in 8th.

But I do not have a hands on expiriance, so hard to judge how accurate such an observation could be.

Well, not really. 7th had Necrons,Tau, Daemons, Eldar, Space Wolves and Space Marines on the top basically playing their own game where all other armies couldn't really compete (CSM got their Decurion very late in the Edition, before that you had to heavily house rule or play Maelstrom to stand a chance).
In 8th I'd say all armies are pretty close with Grey Knights being the only outlier. Of course there are some tourney lists that would crush more casual approaches, but they're not exklusive to any faction, just that Tau, Guard, Knights and maybe the new Marines have it a little easier.

Well eldar were great for months, and their flyer lists are still great. No many people play orcs here, because of army costs, but IG seems to be popular. But it kind does prove my view point on 8th. if I had started in 7th ed, instead of starting in 8th, I would just be miserable for longer. In the end it does really matter what kind of a marine list is beating you over and over again.

It is like in sports, when you have an opponent beats you at every event. It doesn't really matter if he chokes you out wins on points, or is an donkey-cave and wins by making you drop out because of on injury.

Were the demon armies soupy like the ones right now, because from a practical point of view the chaos lists that do well nowadays are full of demons, they just aren't non nurgle demons or they are csm demons.

CSM in csm armies seem to have been as bad in the past, as they are now. At least people here say that the last time csm were good, as in the models, it was 2ed or 3ed. That is a long time of being bad, if someone wants to play csm in their csm army.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Tyranids are apparently pretty solid this edition, necrons have done worse in 8th but they where kinda powerful in 7th with their own rules, as well as hull points making them digustingly deadly vs tanks

"Pretty solid"

AHHAHAHAHHAHA, the worst Xeno army by as mile (whilsts its faction is literally carried by GSC) yet you say that Necrons are WORSE (when were the last time Tyranids took a serious TOP 3? Necrons do that from time to time at least)

Using tournament placing as a measure of how good a 40k army is just a stupid, stupid thing to do. I get on fine with my tyranids and have won a majority of my games. I think I've lost twice in the last two years playing twice a month on average.

Put simply if you want high level competitive play 8th (and 40k in general) is trash and always will be. If you want a fun time with some friends for throwing dice around 8th is the best 40k has ever been,

This is so BS on so many levels I don't even want to fully reply. Discreting the only real statistics we have on Highest level of play for 40K (which ARE tournaments) whilst simultaneously putting all your trust in your local 2 games per month is somewhat I wouldn't try to do even under narcotics.

Considering a vast, vast majority of people don't play tournaments and play the same way I do I would trust my experience (both with 8th and the previous 18-or-so years of playing) over some tournaments. I mean if you want a really accurate representation of armies based on tournament data you need to factor stuff like the location, the player base, the spread of armies, the average dice rolls over the course of games, player experience, cost of entry, prize money, player attitudes, how well rested they are etc. There are too many variables in play to make any sort of accurate assessment of armies via tournaments.

For example does a hungover player who drove 300 miles the day before and rolled below average approaching the tournament casually but got lucky on some key rolls have the same statistical value as a well rested, competitive player who lives down the road but had bad luck with the dice? No. The very idea of assuming tournament placement is any sort of objectivly useful indicator of anything is laughable. Not to mention supposedly "low tier" armies surprise tournament players all the time. Didn't a Grey Knight army, supposedly THE worst army in 8th win a tournament recently? Why didn't tournament data predict that?

Nah, when it comes to the 40k that most actual people play, which is casual games with friends, I'll trust my own experience and knowledge over some random guy in California who says "oh well Harelquins won the Back-o-Beyond 2019 Tournament so they're OP, no it doesn't matter that there was only 4 players and one left after the first game, this is actual turnament data!".

Okey, but how different are the tournament lists from the non tournament ones? I don't play in tournaments, as it would be just waste of money. Most of my opponents don't play in big tournaments either. People do take part in store events, but I wouldn't call those the hight of tournament game play. Plus there are often wierd rules, like no monsters or no +2sv this round etc. So people don't have super optimised armies. But in reality all this achives is that instead of having 7-9 flyers, my opponent has 5-6. That his IH army doesn't have a leviathan, as we can't use FW rules at the store, but everything else you can find in IH lists is in the army. loyal 32s were common, I think I was the only one that didn't run it out of 17 imperial players at the store.


Also the suprise GK thing happened in 4 events over 2 years span. Two of which happened in scotland, where the guy that won with them anwser to "what about castellans" was "I hid my army, plus people don't play them here", and one was an invitational tournament to showcase painted army.

But yeah people do get suprised by GK, specially new ones. When they hear that a GK basic trooper cost 40+ or 21pts. Some get mind blown by it.

 jasper76 wrote:
Way back when, when 8th came out, my gaming group decided not to follow along, primarily financially because we mutually owned almost all the cool 7th books that came out, and they released a f-ing library in 7th, but also most of us, including myself, didn't like what we then perceived as drastic mechanical changes.


But I am very curious now that a bunch of time has past, do you prefer 8th to 7th? 7th to 8th? What are the pros and cons?

Well. 8th managed to remove tactics and logic. Rules are lot slower as well and only saved by most of armies dead after turn 1.

Balance wise same mess as always. Gw doesn't want balance and it shows.

No. The very idea of assuming tournament placement is any sort of objectivly useful indicator of anything is laughable. Not to mention supposedly "low tier" armies surprise tournament players all the time. Didn't a Grey Knight army, supposedly THE worst army in 8th win a tournament recently? Why didn't tournament data predict that?

Ah also, if GK were good, then people would have had done better with clone lists of the land raider list that won twice. But absolutly no one was able to achive the same results. Top build of the other armies on the other hand, were succesful in large and small events all around the world. And if they worked all around the world in big tournaments, then lists that look kind of a the same are going to just as good outside of tournaments.

People were were pulling their hair out, because of the pre nerf IH lists, that they had some mind blowing close to +50% win ratio. But I don't think many people thought what the old IH would do in non tournament games. Because in touranments you bring your best stuff. And maybe your army is not so good, but it has that one silver bullet build which is good. But if it is a non tournament game and you have not bought in to the tournament list, but "play what you like", then a casual pre nerf IH is going to beat you 10 out of 10 times. This was the problem with old Inari too or castellans. Sure they can be beaten, and not just by playing a mirror match, but it always involved a tournament list or playing a skew list. And not many people like to play skew lists ouside of tournaments, because if you skew too hard, people will just stop playing with you. Because what is there to prove? that an army with 100 str 5 ap 2 shots practicaly ignoring LoS kill a footslogging orc army dead? everyone knows that after 2-3 games.

Oh, one other reason to not listen to this forum - lots of people who dont play will come tell you how awful it is.

Sorry Sim-Life, but KurtAngle is right. If you want to know how well balanced a game system is then you look at what happens at the top of the most competitive environments where people are bringing their A game. You want to see the rules hold up there and see the top players win with a wide variety of armies and factions.

If it's well balanced and hard to abuse the rules in that environment then it's great for casual players just looking for a random pick-up game, because you don't need to have a negotiation over what kind of game you want to play.

Pefect balance isn't possible in any game complex enough to be worth playing, but in an ideal system the game should be decided on the table. A skilled player with a list picked by throwing darts should beat a bad player with a tuned tournament net-list most of the time, and 40k has never worked that way.

The Newman wrote:
Sorry Sim-Life, but KurtAngle is right. If you want to know how well balanced a game system is then you look at what happens at the top of the most competitive environments where people are bringing their A game. You want to see the rules hold up there and see the top players win with a wide variety of armies and factions.

If it's well balanced and hard to abuse the rules in that environment then it's great for casual players just looking for a random pick-up game, because you don't need to have a negotiation over what kind of game you want to play.

Pefect balance isn't possible in any game complex enough to be worth playing, but in an ideal system the game should be decided on the table. A skilled player with a list picked by throwing darts should beat a bad player with a tuned tournament net-list most of the time, and 40k has never worked that way.

Which is exactly why I said at high level play 40k is trash and always will be but at a casual level it's great. Armies people claim are terrible (GK, Tyranids specifically in this thread) do fine at the casual level. I know this because I've used them at that level and won games with them. My main point was that tournament data is useless for the most part because most people don't play at a tournament level, they play at a casual level.

Can I make this any clearer?

The Newman wrote:
Sorry Sim-Life, but KurtAngle is right. If you want to know how well balanced a game system is then you look at what happens at the top of the most competitive environments where people are bringing their A game. You want to see the rules hold up there and see the top players win with a wide variety of armies and factions.

If it's well balanced and hard to abuse the rules in that environment then it's great for casual players just looking for a random pick-up game, because you don't need to have a negotiation over what kind of game you want to play.

Pefect balance isn't possible in any game complex enough to be worth playing, but in an ideal system the game should be decided on the table. A skilled player with a list picked by throwing darts should beat a bad player with a tuned tournament net-list most of the time, and 40k has never worked that way.

Can you offer some examples of games which are well balanced and hard to abuse, where somehow being balanced at the top level of play, means they are balanced at all levels of play?
Because I am drawing a blank.

I feel confident in saying that in 8th, yes, a good player with an average list will tend to beat a bad player with whatever is the currrent net deck, because they will play the mission and the bad player won't.
But sure - if you meet on planet bowling ball and its just a question of throwing dice until one side falls over, the mathematically good stuff tends to win out.
But again, struggling to think of any miniatures game where this isn't the case.

 jasper76 wrote:
Way back when, when 8th came out, my gaming group decided not to follow along, primarily financially because we mutually owned almost all the cool 7th books that came out, and they released a f-ing library in 7th, but also most of us, including myself, didn't like what we then perceived as drastic mechanical changes.

I know this was just an introduction to your actual question, but I've been wondering if I'll feel the same way if GW release a 9th edition. I guess I've only spent about £200 on 8th edition rules so perhaps moving to a new edition wouldn't such a big deal

 Brother Castor wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Way back when, when 8th came out, my gaming group decided not to follow along, primarily financially because we mutually owned almost all the cool 7th books that came out, and they released a f-ing library in 7th, but also most of us, including myself, didn't like what we then perceived as drastic mechanical changes.

I know this was just an introduction to your actual question, but I've been wondering if I'll feel the same way if GW release a 9th edition. I guess I've only spent about £200 on 8th edition rules so perhaps moving to a new edition wouldn't such a big deal

Unlikely. They can refresh the system AND still get book sales with Chapter Approved.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Oh, one other reason to not listen to this forum - lots of people who dont play will come tell you how awful it is.

Yes, people who think it's awful don't play it.
Surprising, really.

Like 7th but blander and with less depth.